An ADHD diet is one of the major considerations of the HET Holistic Educational Therapy Programme. I am constantly asked by parents, carers, and families of those who have ADHD symptoms, whether changing their diet can improve their condition.

I can only tell you that time and time again, we have had successes through making changes to diets but before we talk about what those changes are  – let’s first understand what we mean, by ADHD . ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be a diagnosis which is made when young people, children or adults show certain types of behaviour that meet the criteria on a scale called the ‘Connors rating scale’. After diagnosis, then medication may be prescribed which can have very unpleasant side effects and which can actually make behaviours worse.

Sometimes there is no medical diagnosis and you may feel that certain behaviours   mean that someone MUST have ADHD and everyone involved just has to cope with the situations which can create great stress in everyone’s life and certainly stop the sufferer from achieving their potential and may prevent them from making positive friendships and relationships.

So what are the symptoms associated with this?  Generally it can be impulsivity – people doing irrational things on the spur off the moment without thinking through the consequences, or it may mean they lose control in certain situations again taking nor responsibility for the consequences of behaviour or they can be very fidgety and find it almost possible to complete tasks due in part to the constant stream of thoughts and distractions happening to them.

The Holistic educational Therapy programme is a step-by-step approach to unlocking the holistic causes why someone might be behaving in this way. As I mentioned diet is a major consideration in this respect. So where do we start?  

 Part of our bench marking techniques show the health improvements over a 6  month period for a child attending a special school for mild learning difficulties.

The first thing to consider s that most of our food today is coated in many, many toxins, insecticides, pesticides, preservatives, colourings, artificial sweeteners and flavourings and so on. Many people have developed, sensitivity, intolerance or even outright allergy to many of these damaging chemicals.

  By keeping dietary diaries and seeing behaviour patterns like how uncontrollable behaviour affect us in frequency and severity after we have eaten them can be a very good indication of what can change the problem. By eliminating the suspects form the diet for a month and then reintroducing them one at a time – we can have a good idea of what the culprit is. 

Some excellent work which I always recommend has been carried out into the FEINGOLD diet. This is recommended by the hyperactive children’s support group. Very often this can show big improvements in a very short space of time as extreme behaviours start to calm down.

If we introduce really good supplements alongside this approach we can really start  to see dramatic changes and to be honest have a very rigorous method in place with HET to prove how effective our approaches are and within three months we have consistently shown improvements just by introducing a very good quality supplement programme. This is necessary, as sadly our foods are very deficient in certain nutrients today owing to extensive farming and production methods.

 A basic programme known to have results in a three month period includes a good quality food ( not chemical ) based vitamin and mineral supplement that hasn’t been heated beyond 60 degrees centigrade, in it’s production process. Excellent studies have been carried out to show just how effective taking zinc and magnesium, is for example. Alongside this we recommend a very pure soy based protein drink first thing in the day to improve concentration and attention span. 

For a copy of our nutritional programme that is used in schools with our HET therapists and the dietary diaries and research pack - 

please email me info@holisticeducationaltherapy.co.uk

Also, we introduce flax seed oil which is very important in the calming of brain processes, the nervous system and the way the body’s cells function. This is a much better and purer source than fish oils, of what is referred to as essential fatty acids. A deficiency of which can make these kind of ADHD behaviours worse. 

We also recommend a programme of anti-oxidants, which mop the toxins discussed earlier. These toxins are referred to as free radicals. They might be perceived as hooligans roaming around the body looking for damage to do in the environment. The anti-oxidants are like a police force that goes and rounds them up and cleans up the environment after them as it were.

Linda Porter, Linda Porter ( BA., Cert.Ed.,MIPTI, MFSHG, BFRP,MACTA, Dip.Phy. ASSOCIAT reg.) is the founder of the Holistic educational therapy Programme and an established specialist in behaviours / psychology / Education and  natural and safe approaches to working with ADHD diet.

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