As a parent of a child with severe food intolerances, I would like to say that genuine sensitivities of the kind mentioned in this article do exist.
Our 5 year old son is on a very restricted diet similar to the one this little girl was on, and has been for 4 years. However, we’ve had professional diagnosis of the problem, which initially presented with skin lesions that eventually covered his entire body, combined with sleep and behavioural problems.
He takes a daily multivitamin and calcium supplementation, and has a 6-weekly visit with a nutritionist to monitor his progress. Now he is to all appearances a normal 5 year old, ahead of the curve on the growth charts for weight and height, but if he eats foods over his (very low) threshold for salicylates, amines, glutamates, or many classes of preservatives, we see extreme mood swings, aggression, hyperactivity, rashes.
As a result of educating ourselves on the subject, I’ve come to believe that a lot of our children’s behavioural problems may be connected to food. The tales about sugar making kids hyper are false - it’s the colourings and preservatives that affect children with those sensitivities. Food as a cause is worth investigating, if you’re experiencing such problems, but I can’t stress enough that any self-diagnosis needs to be backed by professional confirmation and monitoring.
