Q: My 13-year-old daughter has recently decided that she no longer wants to eat meat. I'm concerned about the health risks, and trying to come up with meals for her is time consuming. Could you help with this dilemma?

 

A: Addressing your concerns about health risks, have her talk to your family doctor, nurse practitioner, or registered dietician. There are health benefits to eating smaller amounts of meat (especially in these days of beef recalls). But when one omits a food from their diet, others need to be added to make up for it. She will need to get her protein, iron, and vitamins from other sources. Buy her a couple of vegetarian cookbooks and books on nutrition and let her experiment.

 

If she is old enough to make this decision, then she is old enough to learn how to properly manage her diet so that she gets the nutrition that she needs as her body is still growing and developing. I would turn this over to your daughter. Once she has talked with a health professional, let her come up with recipes and menus. It could actually be less work for you in the long run, and could actually benefit the entire family.

 

Teach her kitchen safety and how to prepare foods safely, and how to store cooked foods. Teaching her the basics will give her a good foundation to something that will benefit her now and in the future when she has her own kitchen and family.

 

The family will likely be introduced to new foods, or foods prepared in different ways. It will be fun and provide valuable mother-daughter time for the two of you to cook together.
 

 

Dr. Dave,

I recently read your article on Autism. What about bipolar disorder? I have been teaching for over 20 years and never heard of bipolar disorder until about 4 or 5 years ago. It seems that there has been an "explosion" of children being diagnosed as bipolar. To what do you attribute this?

Thanks for your time.
 
Answer:

Q: We all know how important good nutrition is for young children. When my son started Kindergarten, the school sent home information about healthy breakfasts and lunches, that good nutrition was important for learning.
 
In second grade, his teacher wanted to discuss ADHD. He had trouble sitting in his seat, would answer without raising his hand, and so on. We filled out the Connors checklist and his teacher filled out one as well. After reading our checklists, even though my husband and I didn't notice anything that would indicate that he was ADHD, the pediatrician wrote a prescription for ADHD medications after seeing our son for about 10 minutes.
 
Our son lost his appetite and wouldn't eat breakfast or drink a breakfast drink. He would bring his lunch home, hardly nibbled. He began having problems concentrating and rarely answered in class. I called the pediatrician, who increased the dosage.
 
He still didn't eat and he still didn't concentrate. I did some research and one of the side effects listed was loss of appetite. I felt so bad...of course my son couldn't concentrate, he wasn't eating well!
 
We stopped the medication on the weekend and didn't give it to him on Monday (we did give him a vitamin pill and told him that it was new medicine, because his teacher would ask if he'd taken it). We got a report that day that 'the medicine must be working because he'd had his best day ever."
 
My question is this: If loss of appetite is a side effect in many children, doesn't it seem that they could become malnourished and be unable to focus and concentrate? It doesn't do growing brains any good to be deprived of nutritious food.
 
What are your thoughts on this? I am so grateful to have found your books and website!
 
A grateful mom

 

 

Q: Dr. Dave, what do you think about the recent FDA warning on ADHD medications? You've warned of the dangers for years; I hope that parents and teachers will listen!

 

 

15-year-old curses
 
Q: Dr. Dave, our 15.5 year old son curses constantly. Not the "F" word, but other four letter words. We have told him to stop, grounded him, taken away privileges and he still curses. Neither my husband nor I use that kind of language. He had 3 friends over one day and he was the only one cursing. Any ideas for how to stop this? Thanks, your new website is awesome!