*** What’s Eating Your Child? – Children’s Nutrition Book Review

After using energy psychology modalities to clear emotional blocks to wellness, the physical body often needs natural healing information to support regeneration and healing. When searching recently for an up-to-date resource on children’s nutrition, What’s Eating Your Child? by Kelly Dorfman, MS, LND, was highlighted as one of the most up-to-date and complete texts of its kind for use with children, for supporting their bodies through nutrition. It is highly recommended!

The author, Kelly Dorfman, is very well-versed in nutrition and the text offers copious quantities of real case studies with which a desperate parent or physician will relate. She is very humble about her own credentials, yet her easy-to-read writing style, clear description of symptoms, clues, and then subsequent treatment of hard-to-diagnose conditions, provides a wealth of information as it gently guides the most novice “health detective – doctor mom/or dad” and augments the knowledge of seasoned professionals.

One of the main premises stressed throughout the book is that each body is unique from all others, and that we as a culture must get away from the “one-size-fits-all” responses to hard-to-categorize illnesses. Most of the cases listed in the book reflect the harrowing tales of parents who have consulted between three and five medical experts before seeking advice from the author. This is a tale of our times, and its up-to-date information, conditions, incorrect mainstream diagnoses, and mostly happy endings to case stories makes it not only a good read, but an important tool for all parents of human children.

This book provides simple yet scientifically supported nutritional solutions that address, mitigate, and often erase both the symptoms and causes of health problems such as food allergies, reflux, picky eating, attention issues, moodiness, behavioral difficulties, constipation, lack of energy, sleeplessness, and learning disabilities in children. The information is based on the power of good foods, vitamins, and minerals to create better health, growth, and development in children. And, as each condition is explained, there are multiple possible causes that are examined using clues that are clearly explained so that the most harried parent or stumped professional can become a good symptom detective.

The text points out the importance of nutrition not only for childhood development, but for human life in general. It talks about how to look for symptoms, clues, patterns, and then provides strong scientific and experiential data for helping to support the healing of the symptoms. The author tends to like to stay away from “labels”, so a more wholistic approach to the symptom set allows for open-minded nutritional detective work to be performed without limited biases. I relate to this approach for the benefits of all concerned.

The organization of the book is generally by condition or set of symptoms, so it is easy to use. Kelly discusses serious conditions and illnesses experienced by the children of many of her clients and readers, and she doesn’t go out of her way to scare these parents. She is matter-of–fact and offers alternatives that usually work effectively, much to the relief of all concerned. She backs all of the chapters in her book with cases related to each condition or symptom set covered, and she helps to guide the exploratory detective work as she makes suggestions for treatment.

So, in conclusion, the premises in this text make perfect sense based on the uniqueness of each human body and the power of nutrition to support the innate healing power therein. And, the most helpful key points of the overall book are:

1. The ease of use by parents seeking answers in stressful circumstances.
2. The many tables and special information sections that offer specific definitions, charts, points of interest, additional data related to the text content.
3. A good glossary and strong up-to-date bibliography of related resources.
4. An end chapter of FAQ’s – Frequently Asked Questions – that may be very helpful to readers.
5. The diet regime “The E.A.T. Program” offered in Chapter 4, which provides a plan for eliminating harmful foods from a child’s dietary pattern.
6. The use of many case studies offered throughout the book which point out symptoms, clues to possible causes, options for treatment of symptoms, and the subsequent application of the best solution to each individual case,… with results listed of both successes and failures.
7. The organization of the book into four sections: 1- Nutrition Detection at Work, which stresses the importance of nutrition and points out how to apply it to treat symptoms; 2- When the Body Behaves Badly, which discusses physical pain and reactions; 3- Kids and Their Many Moods, which focuses on the psychological and emotional issues often mis-treated but based on nutritional deficiencies, allergies, or other naturally treatable causes; 4- Learning and Behavior in Kids, that connects the dots between physical issues and mental abilities, all with natural remedies and treatments.

I highly recommend this book and have enjoyed reading it. It should become a strong tool in every parent and child-treating professional’s medicine cabinet.

What’s Eating Your Child? The Hidden Connections Between Food and Childhood Ailments: Anxiety, Recurrent Ear Infections, Stomachaches, Picky Eating, Rashes, ADHD, and More. And What Every Parent Can Do About It. – Kelly Dorfman, MS, LND; 2011; Workman Publishing Co., NY, NY. ISBN #978-0-7611-6119-6