Positive Health Online

Emotional Food

Food is: 'a beneficial substance that can be used to yield energy'
Energy is 'power to produce'.

Human beings comprise spirit, mind and body and 'power to produce' can apply to any of these aspects in a constructive (positive) way or a destructive (negative) way. An example of energy being used in both negative and positive ways can be demonstrated in the way exercise works in muscle tissue to break down muscle fibres (catabolism 'destructive'), and then re-builds in a stronger way (anabolism 'constructive'). Physical food yields both the energy to physically break-down and build-up muscle tissue and mental/brain food for the motivation to exercise.

At the beginning of Part I[1] of this article series, it was mentioned that love was the greatest gift any parent could give a child and covered right feeding as one aspect of love. Attention is another aspect.

Photo Credit: Courtesy V Bradshaw-Black

Our general historical climate has been to consider babyhood and childhood as somewhat 'sub-standard' to adulthood.  If we neglect babying our babies when they are babies and we end up trying to 'accommodate' them during adulthood because deprived as babies and children, they can be hindered in appropriately timed maturity. If you think this is overemphasis - check with therapists and relationship counsellors! There are vast numbers of 'immature' adults who haven't appropriately adapted to adult responses and potentially have life-long hang-ups unless they take active steps to acknowledge the roots of problems and do something about them.

The brain works by taking on 'whatever' as personal truth and it stays as such until it is modified by other 'whatevers'. An example of this is a child believing that little worms live in books until they later learn that 'bookworm' is a term given to avid readers and then modify their original beliefs. There are excellent books which describe how we learn.[2]

Sadly, many parents believe that babies should be left to cry. The hardness that socially conditioned adults can display is sad but there is no condemnation or imputing motives to parents. Those who are hard have undoubtedly been hardened by their own traumas and/or 'societal values', but I am simply putting into print for consideration that a baby cries because it has no other means of communication. Many of us have done (what we have learned over the years) was not the best thing and, sadly, even detrimental to our children, but nevertheless done with the very best of intentions at the time. Perhaps many of us did not have the opportunity to learn from the experiences and/or wisdom of others.

A baby's cry is to be taken seriously. There is nothing wrong with a baby needing to be held. Some people seem to believe that if the nappy is not soiled and the baby is fed, then there is no reason to cry, and it will spoil him/her to pick them up. This attitude seems to many parents to verge on neglect of a helpless tiny human being. A baby is not a second-class citizen because of its dependence, and should be respected. There are plenty who will disagree with this, but if it provokes either thought or, more preferably, feeling, then the statement is worth it. For other parents, they need the support of hearing what they already know deep down in their maternal/parental instincts but have felt unsupported in believing (mostly conditioned by relatively 'modern' society). This can be especially trying if hostility is forthcoming from parents and in-laws.

There were horrific experiments, many years ago notably in Romanian orphanages, depriving children of normal handling and human interactions. The gross cruelty and neglect resulted in various stages of inability to relate to self and others and ultimately lead to many of their deaths. A baby cannot survive without adequate attention and 'self-validity'. Unfortunately, some babies have to make do with negative attention instead of love, but without either there is no healthy prospect for a tiny dependent. The natural widening of this dependency state is when a baby starts to crawl and walk and becomes independent, little by little, supported by the assurance of safety of retreat for the little explorer. This is the pace at which things should be taken, not the dictates of 'experts' who go against the very grain of nature itself. Where there is neglect or abuse there is a physiological derangement of stress hormones, notably abnormal cortisol profiles, and these affect the whole body as well as the mind.

It is sad that some embarrassment seems attached to being wonderfully caring of our infants. We should expose this deception and promote the warm, appropriate loving and caring of our little ones and stop pressure upon them to be old before their time. Motherhood is not an easy or second class job! Home-based mothers receive little support and are even criticised for 'not working'. This is a sad indictment of our society. Home-based mothers and those who are work-based outside the home have individual needs and circumstances and both need support from society. Perhaps we should consider what we presume to be right and how women are pressurized to conform to society dictates or be made to feel inferior. These factors have an enormous bearing on the emotional food available to babies through their primary carers, i.e. mothers.[3]

There are many authors who will stimulate the desire to become a free-thinker in the areas of healthy child rearing. Books by people such as John Holt, Ivan Illich and Tony Humphreys are good starters to build an information bank to widen the scope of personal choices. There are people like Professor Roland Meighan[4] who write about the education system and how children learn. In case the above comments might give the wrong impression, another aspect of love is instruction and discipline. Without the gentle, loving administration of these two, a child will have no boundaries and become disorientated and insecure. A baby is born centred on 'self'. Loving, gentle but firm, gradual instruction (mainly by example) guides a baby into becoming a child who considers others and feels valid within a stable social structure. This emotional food provides the 'power to produce' balanced character growth.

Deprivation on the one hand and permissiveness on the other
are two extremes to avoid for fulfilled children to become balanced adults.

The emotional food a child needs includes being loved, respected, nurtured, guided, instructed, taught, disciplined appropriately, encouraged, given opportunities and support to become an independent, responsible, feeling and caring human being able to express his/her unique talents, abilities and contributions to his/her world. Life with an 'ideal start' will be hard enough for any child especially during the adolescent and teen years. Unresolved issues which children cannot yet deal with but place somewhere in the filing cabinet of the brain/mind/body present a potential handicap until they are later 'activated' to be dealt with: a little like activating a file on a computer desktop and modifying the file contents.

Disruptions to Food Sources
The escalation in the magnitude of health problems like the autistic spectrum disorders, attention deficit disorders, anxiety states, depression, asthma, eczema, allergies, bowel problems, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, anorexia and eating disorders, high blood pressure, cancers etc. in the last two or three generations all have a cause - they do not just land on random victims.

Even with right feeding and plenty of appropriate love, a most important contribution to infant ill-health and inefficient immune systems is the assault on normal physiology by toxic materials and foreign proteins. There is not space here to elaborate on toxic metals, chemicals and animal proteins introduced directly into babies blood streams by vaccinations, by-passing all the normal protective mechanisms of the alimentary canal. Many authorities now speak out about the auto-immune states which are provoked by such assaults and the drugs administered to counter their symptoms. Many of these states are re-labelled with 'new names' and the causes blamed upon either unknown factors or invented organisms. Anyone interested in raising healthy children must be aware of these factors. Information is extremely plentiful and just two randomly selected book titles are referenced below.[5, 6]  For those who wish to consider detoxification of toxic materials which relate to their children's circumstances, both homeopathic and herbal specifics are used by many therapists with good results.

Examples of homeopathic detoxification remedies for heavy metals, stimulation of the immune system and chemicals
Photo Credit:  Courtesy of New Vistas Healthcare Ltd, Plassey Park, Limerick, Ireland, www.newvistashealthcare.com

On a positive note, read the wonderful true story of a life-saving physical cuddle which had an enormous 'power to produce' effect for one little baby.[7]

References    
1.    Positive Health Issue 186, September 2011. www.positivehealth.com/article/nutrition/the-best-nutritional-start-for-your-baby-part-i
2.    Dr Caroline Leaf. Who switched off my brain. Thomas Nelson: ISBN-10: 0981956726. 2009.
3.    Where relevant, appropriate mother substitutes are inclusive.
4.    www.rolandmeighan.co.uk
5.    Guylaine Lanctot, The Medical Mafia, Here's The Key Inc, ISBN 0-9644126-08, 1995
6.     Viera Scheibner, Vaccination, Dr Vera Scheibner Pub, Australia, 1993, ISBN 0-646-15124-X  
7.    www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-500430/Doctors-gave-20oz-baby-dead---I-saved-life-cuddle.html