Nutrition, Children; Changing a Child's Diet; The Alpha Nutrition Program

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Alpha Nutrition Program for Children

Nutritional Therapy is based on removing the cause of illness by correcting a faulty food supply. The Alpha Nutrition Program is standard method of diet revision. The program was developed as practical medical management of food-related illnesses. The Alpha Nutrition Program works well for children, but change is difficult. Each child has individual needs. Your task is to find the best-fit food choices for your child's special biological requirements.

The Leader Mother is often the leader when a child needs help. You cannot isolate one person in a family and change their diet while everyone else continues to eat all the old foods. The whole family has to be involved to help one child. When a family does Alpha Nutrition together, everyone tends to benefit. If you have identified a need for change, you may still have doubts about what you should do. You may first try minor changes or look for easier solutions than complete diet revision. You probably have discussed your options with family, friends, and professional advisers and have collected different, perhaps contradictory opinions.

A Child's Special Needs One way to view your child's illnesses, emotional and behavioral disturbances is as a failure of adaptation - a mismatch between the biological properties of their body and the kind of food and environment you are offering him or her. Each child has individual needs. Your task is to find the best-fit food choices for your child's special biological requirements. You observe your child's responses every day, and decide which foods cause trouble and which foods are OK.

The goal is to return to a diet of simple, carefully selected, natural foods. Fresh or frozen vegetables, fruit, poultry, and fish are the basic food choices. These are staple foods that allow us to reconstruct daily menus, with confidence of good nutrition, and stable life-long eating habits. For most children, a shift to meals featuring cooked vegetables is the most important change.

The Alpha Nutrition Program includes primary foods, popular all over the world and, at the same time, excludes other foods that are staples in current North American diets. Alpha Nutrition food selection is success-oriented, and has no other basis in taste, preference, or ideology. The design of the program was originally based on experience solving the problem of delayed pattern food allergies. The first foods on the diet are chosen because of a low probability of adverse reactions. At the same time, Alpha Nutrition design emphasized foods that are nourishing and are associated with the prevention of many common food-related diseases.

Since there is no current testing method that reliably identifies the causes food-related illnesses, we cannot specify a short list of foods to avoid, and assume that everything else will function properly. We can assume that diets with low allergenic potential will be helpful in most children, and begin therapy with a "hypoallergenic diet". When symptoms are reduced, foods may be added back in an orderly manner to determine the limits of your child's tolerances.

You become the therapist and quickly learn to interpret your child's symptoms and make appropriate decisions about the right food supply. By monitoring your child's progress, you can identify recurring problems, and change the food selection to avoid them. If symptoms recur, you retreat to an early stage of the program, even to the initial Phase 1 foods, for several days, to allow the disturbance to clear. The strategy is to custom-fit a diet plan to each child's needs.

Stages of Transformation

Alpha Nutrition is a transformation technique. The potential for change in physical and mental state is great. But, any change is disruptive. You should, therefore, expect some difficulties in changing your children's' food choices, and prepare intelligently to cope with the problems encountered. Family participation is important to children, who have difficulty if their food is different from everyone else's. With food allergy, several family members are often afflicted, but perhaps not to the same degree. If the whole family participates in Diet Revision, other family members will often benefit, even when no benefit is anticipated.

Diet Revision Therapy is kindly motivated, and intends no harm. We live in a pleasure-oriented culture, and often use food as a reward. Most of us grew up with rewards and punishments based on offering or withholding food treats and continue this tradition in the management of our own children. When you realize that a child's food selections may contribute to illness, behavioral problems, or learning dysfunction, you must adopt an entirely different approach to eating. Food is no longer recreational and no food is offered as a reward.

Learn more about Solving Children's Health Problems

Using Alpha Nutrient formulas for Infants and Children

This Web Site was developed by Alpha Nutrition â Health Education, a division of Environmed Research Inc. Sechelt, B.C., Canada. Online Since 1995. Experts in Self-Managed Care. Experts in Elemental Nutrient Formulas. Orders for printed books and nutrient formulas are placed at Alpha Online. Persona Publications is another division of Environmed with a separate online site for the distribution of eBooks and other digital documents. Alpha Nutrition ® is a registered trademark of Environmed Research Inc.