William Sears - The N.D.D. Book: How Nutrition Deficit Disorder Affects Your Childs Learning, Behavior, and Health, and What You Can Do About It--Without Drugs

Copyright 2009 by William Sears, M.D.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: April 2009

Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-316-05298-6

Sears Parenting Library

The Vaccine Book

The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood

The Baby Sleep Book

The Premature Baby Book

The Pregnancy Book

The Baby Book

The Birth Book

The Attachment Parenting Book

The Breastfeeding Book

The Fussy Baby Book

The Discipline Book

The Family Nutrition Book

The A.D.D. Book

The Successful Child

Parenting.com FAQ Books

The First Three Months

How to Get Your Baby to Sleep

Keeping Your Baby Healthy

Feeding the Picky Eater

Sears Childrens Library

Baby on the Way

What Baby Needs

Eat Healthy, Feel Great

You Can Go to the Potty

To my children:

James

Robert

Peter

Hayden

Erin

Matthew

Stephen

Lauren

and grandchildren:

Andrew

Alex

Joshua

Lea

Jonathan

Ashton

Morgan

Thomas

I have tried my best to protect you from NDD. I hope parents and grandparents the world over will do the same with their families.

To get the most out of your personal NDD-prevention plan, I suggest you take advantage of the following additional resources:

The Family Nutrition Book: Everything You Need to Know About Feeding Your ChildrenFrom Birth Through Adolescence

The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood: Ten Ways to Get Your Family on the Right Nutritional Track

Visit Dr. Sears online at www.AskDrSears.com to find the following:

a free subscription to our bimonthly nutritional and parenting newsletter

a downloadable traffic-light eating chart that you can put up on your refrigerator

mom-to-mom moments: helpful parenting and nutritional tips from my daughter Hayden Sears-Livesay

the food forum, an interactive blog where parents share their favorite recipes and feeding strategies, and the Drs. Sears add their comments

our personal recommendations on nutritional sup plements

updated information from each member of the Sears team: Drs. William, Robert, James, and Peter; Hayden Sears-Livesay; and Martha Sears

Children are getting sicker, sadder, and fatter. Why? The problem is food, glorious food! During my thirty-six years as a pediatrician, I have never before seen such an epidemic of nutrition-related illnesses. In this book you will learn a new name that I have given to this epidemic: NDD, which stands for nutrition deficit disorder. The cause? Children have lost their taste for real food. The treatment? Reshape their taste back to eating real food. Thats what you will learn to do in this book.

Fake food, as you will soon learn, can cause illnesses, and parentsand even many doctorshave lost sight of the fact that real food is real medicine. I will take you inside a childs brain and other body parts so that you can see how real food acts as medicine. You will learn how real food turns on the bodys own internal pharmacy and how junk food interferes with the bodys own natural internal medicines.

In part 1, you will learn why you must make changes in your familys way of eating to prevent NDD. In part 2, you will learn how. By following my seven steps for preventing NDD, you will be well on your way to giving your family the lifelong gift of health. To help you make NDD prevention part of your daily family living, in part 3 we will share our favorite meal plans and recipes.

Does Your Child Have NDD?

I n this section Ill take you on a feeding trip through a childs body. You will be amazed when you see how real foods (occurring in nature) make the brain grow smarter, and fake foods (made in a factory) lead to failing grades. You will learn about a new condition, Nutrition Deficit Disorder (NDD), figure out whether your child has it, and learn how to prevent and treat it. If you are a motivated parent who already knows the connection between good eating and good health, these early chapters will reinforce your choices. If you arent there yet, this part of the book will get you there.

The story begins on a typical day in the office of Sears Family Pediatrics, where I have the privilege of practicing medicine with my three sons. What happened that day changed the way I practice pediatrics forever and influenced the health of hundreds of my patients. That was the day this book was born.

Welcome to our office. How can I help you? I greeted my first patient.

Johnnys school thinks that he has ADD, his mother began.

Attention deficit disorder. Hmm . Tell me, what does Johnny have for breakfast? I inquired.

Hi-C and a Pop-Tart, Johnnys mother confessed.

What does he have for midmorning snack?

Usually nothing, but sometimes he has some chips.

What does he have for school lunch?

Oh, the usual pizza and stuff that kids eat.

Johnny does not have ADD, he has NDD! I said spontaneously, straight from my heart.

Ill never forget the surprised look on this mothers face. She had no idea what on earth NDD was, but it sounded like something she didnt want her child to have.

Nutrition deficit disorder, I interpreted.

I went on to explain to this puzzled parent that the brain, above all other organs, is affected, for better or worse, by what we eat. You put junk food into a childs brain, you get back junk behavior, junk learning, and junk mood. Its as simple as that! The mothers look of amazement immediately changed to one of comprehension. Oh! That makes sense. I get it! NDD. Relieved, she said, So he doesnt need drugs?

No, not the prescription kind. He just needs to eat real food, because real food is real medicine.

It was then that I realized that this mother, and many other moms like her, didnt understand that food can affect how her child learns, behaves, and feels.

DOES YOUR CHILD HAVE NDD?

Here are the main signs we look for when diagnosing a child with NDD:

frequent mood swings

unrelenting temper tantrums