More and more research is showing that excessive sugars, dyes, preservatives, and possibly even milk and wheat products can affect activity level, attention, interactions, confidence, and sense of well being, all factors that impact a child's ability to learn. A child cannot be asked to make healthy food choices while the rest of the family makes…

Obesity increases the risk of many health conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers, high blood pressure, lipid disorders, stroke and more. While obesity affects more than one third of all adult Americans, people with disabilities are more likely to be overweight or obese and often have fewer tools for controlling weight at…

There is much discussion among families about the relationship between nutrition and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There are claims of diets that will "cure" ASD: gluten-free, casein-free, specific carbohydrate diet (SCD). There are claims of benefits by adding nutrients to the diet, such as vitamin B-6 and magnesium, vitamin B-12, or essential…

Many young children display some sort of picky eating. Although most children's diets will eventually consist of an adequate number of foods, some children's diets may not change without intervention. Children with limited diets typically have difficulty consuming new foods because they have some stomach discomfort, have limited oral-motor skills,…

For most children, the developmental stage of exploring the world by putting everything, food and non-food items, in or around the mouth begins at birth and ends around 18 months of age. However, for those with developmental disabilities, this tendency may last into adulthood with the ingestion of non-nutritive, non-food items, a disorder called…

When a child is born with a feeding and/or swallowing problem, it affects the entire family. Parents, mothers specifically, internalize the problem and come to believe it is due to something they've done. Families are put on an emotional rollercoaster with the ups and downs being dependant on how much the child has eaten that day. In this article,…

For those with disabilities, issues of health are often treated in a reactionary way. This article encourages health literacy, education, and awareness targeted towards those with disabilities in helping them take ownership of their plan for staying healthy, with a focus on weight management. Weight management challenges for people with…

This article deals with the good and bad things about body fats as well as the truth behind trans fat. Fat has some important roles in the body. It allows for efficient energy storage and is also important for proper growth and development and maintenance of good health. In this article, the author discusses various categories of food fats and…

Stooling is one of the bodily functions most often taken for granted. While parents (and care providers) may be very focused on the quantity and quality of the foods that a child eats, they often pay much less attention to what's coming out the diaper end. A child's stooling pattern has a huge influence on what and how they eat. It can also have a…

The journey children make from tube feeding to oral feeding is personal for each child and family. There is a sequence of predictable plateaus that children climb as they move toward orally eating. By better understanding this sequence, parents and children can maximize the development, learning, enjoyment and confidence at each plateau. The…