Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Dr. Fuhrman was quoted in an Associated Press article that ran in all sorts of newspapers last week. His message was simple: getting kids to eat healthy food begins with empowering children.

"The child has to be a part of the decision-making process. They have to feel empowered," said Dr. Joel Fuhrman, an author of family fitness books who helped the Wandlings get on track.

Instead, experts say adults often inflict more harm than good by setting rules that only provoke rebellion. Some parents become so restrictive that they forbid even small treats like birthday cake. Others deeply humiliate their children, making a fuss in public over what their kids are eating.

Another common pitfall is isolating a child with a special diet while the rest of the family indulges freely, Fuhrman said. That only creates a forbidden fruit syndrome that can make the child yearn for foods that are off-limits.

Dr. Fuhrman has lots of tactics parents can use to inspire children to eat healthy food. He explains them in more detail in this podcast.

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Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease-Proof Your Child contains a huge new idea: that childhood diet plays an important role in many cancers and other chronic diseases that occur decades later.

Since the book came out, there has been even more research to support the theory. Alert DiseaseProof reader Rick Miller sent us an MSNBC article about new evidence that bad adolescent diets can inspire later breast cancer.

The article, by Karen Collins, R.D., focuses on a phytochemical found in soy, called genistein:

The University of Alabama researcher who presented the new studies at the conference said that genistein offered no protection from breast cancer when it was first given to animals in adulthood. But when the animals ate it before puberty, they had less breast cancer development.

The benefits were even greater when they continued to eat it into adulthood. The evidence suggests that the time around puberty offers a chance to imprint cells with a "blueprint" that creates cellular pathways for long-term protection.

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The diagnosis and treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has skyrocketed in recent years, with a tremendous increase in the percentage of our elementary school children who are taking amphetamines and stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, Cyclert, and others. These medications, with their reported adverse effects and potential dangers, were simply unnecessary for so many children whom I have seen as patients. I have witnessed consistently positive results when these children followed a comprehensive program of nutritional excellence.

One such success story involves George Grant, age eleven, the nicest and most polite boy you would ever meet. Although his parents reported an improvement in his concentration and behavior since beginning Ritalin two years prior to his appointment with me, they were unsatisfied. George had frequent headaches and stomachaches from the medication, and he had tried the other stimulant medications and found that the same problems occurred.

I enjoyed meeting George and talking to him; he was surprisingly mature and interested in his school performance, and did not want his grades to suffer. I told them that it would take about three to six months to really evaluate whether nutritional intervention would work as effectively as the Ritalin, but there was one thing I could promise them: George would feel better, sleep better, have a better appetite, and his headaches and stomachaches would go away within a few weeks with high-nutrient eating.

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