Chapter 1 - Today’s Children-Today’s
World. Throughout time, children have been the promise and hope of
societies around planet Earth. They are the most wondrous, optimistic,
forgiving, resilient human beings among us. It has always been so. We have
made great technological progress in the last 100 years on the planet,
providing unprecedented advances in science, medicine, communications, and
education. But progress comes with costs, especially for the most
vulnerable members of society – our children.
Chapter 1 asks, “What is really going on
with our kids today? And how can we help them?” The answers frame the world
in which today’s children live, giving parents insight and compassion with
which to help their children thrive in that world.
Chapter 2 – Youth in Crisis.
Today’s children are growing up brave in a totally new world. They are also
growing up sick. More than six million American children live with chronic
illnesses; and for the first time in history, hundreds of thousands have
“adult” diseases. Childhood obesity has increased 30 percent in the past 15
years. Type II diabetes, heretofore unheard of in children, is up 45
percent in the past 10 years. Diagnoses of ADHD (Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder) have increased by nine million new cases in the last
10 years; and autism is up 600 percent.
And how are we treating the children whose
lives form these statistics? For the most part, we are just saying yes – to
prescription drugs. According to the DEA, the United States buys and uses 90
percent of the world’s Ritalin supply. During the past five years, Prozac
usage has increased 103 percent in children under the age of 18, and
anti-psychotic prescriptions have shot up 268 percent. Today, 2.5 million
children are taking anti-depressants.
Chapter 3 - The Toxic Barometer.
Children’s growing, developing bodies, minds, and spirits are bombarded
daily with toxins in the food they eat, the air they breathe and the
buildings where they live and learn as well as with toxic images and
sounds. The accumulation of these toxins creates pressure in a child’s
developing system, which builds through a series of stages into
some kind of physical, emotional or mental breakdown. The Toxic
Barometer, tracking five stages of increasing pressure, measures this
process.
Stage 1. Food
Stage 2. Environment
Stage 3. Shelter
Stage 4. Media
Stage 5. Drugs
Chapter 4 – Mirror, Mirror Down the
Hall. Every child is born innocent, soul-full, and bursting with
the possibility to contribute in some way to our world. Everyday choices –
in the foods we eat, the products we buy, the ways in which we resolve
problems and spend our time – influence and in some cases dictate their
choices. How can we expect them to do what we do not do ourselves? Our
children mirror us, calling us to be conscious of our impact on them. We
are the guardians of their destiny. Their lives are in our hands.
Chapter 5 – Brain Chemistry – Body
Chemistry. A child’s body is a complex network of information
highways: nine major organ systems, and many lesser systems, designed to
work together to keep the body in perfect balance. Every organ in
these systems is made up of living cells – 75 trillion of them – specially
organized to perform specific functions in the human body.
A child’s body works like an engine. Each cell
needs specific types of fuel to function. In order to live a healthy life,
a child’s body requires oxygen, water, food energy, protein, 13 organic
vitamins, fatty acids, 18 inorganic elements such as minerals, as well as
carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen as raw materials – magnificently provided in
perfect ratios by nature, in natural, whole foods. Especially during a
child’s first months and years of life, when all his systems are developing
at lightening speed, quality of raw materials equals performance, and thus
quality of life – physical, mental, and emotional.
Before parents can understand the full impact
of the toxins described in later chapters, they need to understand how their
children’s bodies are designed to work. Chapter 5 explains the functions of
the body’s endocrine and digestive systems, and the processes by which
children’s developing systems begin to break down when deprived of quality
raw materials.
Chapter 6 – Silent Inflammation.
Immediate symptoms of this breakdown range from mood swings to muscle
weakness. Long term, these symptoms evolve into chronic diseases such as
obesity, diabetes, behavior problems, and learning disabilities.
Unfortunately, destructive consequences do not always show up immediately,
sometimes not until a child is in her teens. This “silent inflammation” –
the invisible dis-ease that disrupts the body’s natural physiological
processes – leads to all the other diseases that gradually become visible in
the child’s physical, mental, and emotional body over time.
When a child’s body first comes into contact
with a toxic substance, it sounds an alarm by trying to eject the toxin
through any or all of four ways: respiration, perspiration, urination, and
excretion. If the child continues to ingest the toxic substance, his or her
body often adapts until it becomes dependent on the very substance that
originally made it sick. This is addiction. When the alarms are ignored
long enough, the body’s natural protections are exhausted. This is disease.
Chapter 6 describes the effect of this process on the digestive system,
through overuse of antibiotics, for instance; on the nervous system, through
the effect of nutritional imbalances on neurotransmitters; and on the
endocrine system, through the over-consumption of sugar.
Chapter 7 – Earth Body Ecology.
Human beings are cells in the body of the Earth, and its systems mirror our
own. Our individual health –physical, mental, and emotional – affects the
Earth; and our lives are dependent on the greater health of the Earth.
By providing the basics to understanding the
magnificent workings of our children’s bodies, Chapter 7 prepares parents to
grasp the significance of the toxins described in upcoming chapters, and the
importance of changing their lifestyles to protect their child.
“You are what you eat.” This homespun wisdom,
now relegated to the bottom rung of the ladder of advertising slogans, could
not be truer with regard to the scientific reality of human health. And
yet, the average child consumes one to two soft drinks – nutrition-free
chemical cocktails – every day. Not to mention the chemical additives that
color, flavor, preserve, and otherwise “enhance” the manufactured
pseudo-foods that make up 40 percent of the American diet today.
See Sample Chapter. Included:
Chapter 8 –
Fats: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Chapter 9 – Sugar
Chapter 10 – Food Additives – Processed Foods
Chapter 11 –
Solutions: Lentil Soup for the Soul
What we do to the environment, we do to
ourselves. Part 4 gives readers specific examples of how our physical body
mirrors the Earth and her systems. Metaphorically if not literally, there is
little difference between the state of the air, water, and soil of Mother
Earth, and the condition of the breath, blood, and tissue of our own
bodies.
When we pollute the air, water, and soil, we
pollute ourselves. According to the EPA, agriculture is the biggest polluter
of America’s rivers and streams, contaminating more than 173,000 miles of
waterways with agricultural chemicals and livestock wastes. Even our own
urine is polluting the water table, filled with the unused elements of the
pharmaceuticals we take. Readers will find compelling scientific evidence
of the damage of industrialized food production on the human body.
Chapter 12 – Pesticides and Herbicides.
This chapter explains how pesticides and herbicides threaten the brain and
nervous system. John Wargo, author of Our Children’s Toxic Legacy,
explains that high-level exposure to pesticides directly damages the nervous
system: “…Children may be particularly vulnerable to neurotoxic agents [in
pesticides and fertilizers] due to the delayed maturation of certain nervous
system components such as the brain until the age of four to six.”
Chapter 13
– Hormones and Antibiotics. This chapter examines how
the copious amounts of hormones and antibiotics fed to livestock affect the
human body. We explore the effects hormones given to livestock have on
normal human sexual development. Further, we discuss how antibiotics fed to
livestock interfere with the human digestive process.
Chapter 14 – Plastics and Industrial
Waste. Chapter 14 explores the effects pollution from plastics and
industrial waste has on the Earth as well as the body. For example,
phthalates, chemicals used to soften plastics in toys and used in medical
tubes, have been found in high concentrations in some individuals. In 1999
the European Union banned the use of phthalates in baby toys and other
children’s products. The United States has stopped the use of phthalates in
infant bottle nipples, yet this and other harmful plastics are still found
in many infant and children’s products. Parents must be aware that plastics
and other industrial products may have a negative impact on their children’s
health.
Chapter 15 – Solutions: Organic Food,
Sustainable Choices. There are alternative methods that honor
nature’s laws. In agriculture, farming harnesses the natural laws governing
soil fertility to grow and harvest abundant crops naturally and sustainably.
Chapter 15 demonstrates how natural agricultural practices safeguard and
restore our air, water, and soil while promoting human health. For
example, years ago Rutgers University set out to disprove the claim that
organic foods are better. But, much to their surprise, their results showed
quite the opposite: the organic spinach was 97 percent higher in iron than
the conventional spinach; and many trace elements abundant in the organic
produce were completely absent in the commercial products. When purchasing
organic food people make a conscious choice to contribute to the
preservation and enhancement of our water and soil.
In Chapter 15, readers are empowered to grow
the human garden. They learn what organic foods are most important to
purchase and how to incorporate organic meals into their lives affordably.
They also learn how to make practical, incremental improvements, such as
buying in bulk, or preparing festive, organic school lunches. They are
inspired to teach their children where food comes from by growing organic
herbs at home or visiting organic farms.
Part 5.
Shelter: Sick Homes - Sick Schools
Chapter 16 – The Chemical Soup.
Dr. Doris Rapp in her book Is This Your Child’s World? reports:
“Every single day students and teachers are exposed to environmentally
unsafe schools and homes that can compromise their overall health and mental
capabilities.” Of the 80,000 potentially neurotoxic chemicals out there,
the EPA has studied only 12. Chapter 16 spotlights these hidden toxic
substances in the environment.
In 1985 the House Committee on Science
and Technology reported that there were 850 known neurotoxicants any of
which “…may result in devastating neurological or psychiatric disorders that
impair the quality of life, cripple and potentially reduce the highest
intellect to a vegetative state.”
Asbestos, radon, lead, mercury, molds, dust,
mites, germs, even fluorescent lighting and poor ventilation create a
chemical soup – seasoned with medicines, cleaning solvents, cosmetics, and
toxins in household furnishings – in which our children swim.
·
Toxic Substances. Low-level lead
poisoning affects nearly one million children in the U.S.. The EPA
estimates unsafe levels of radon in over eight million homes.
·
Poor Ventilation.
More than 20 million Americans have allergic
reactions to airborne or inhaled allergens, such as cigarette smoke, house
dust, and pollen.
·
Lighting. Research links
cool-white fluorescent bulbs in classrooms with bodily stress, anxiety,
hyperactivity, attention problems, and poor learning performance.
The toxins found in homes and schools can push
a child’s health over the edge. Normal brain development begins in the
uterus and continues throughout the early twenties. During this
extraordinary developmental time, children are highly susceptible to
environmental toxins. In addition, toxins are more concentrated in
children’s small bodies than in adults’ large ones. A small glass cannot
hold as much as a large glass.
Chapter 17 – The Solution: Healthy Homes
– Healthy Schools. More and more educators, caregivers, parents,
and concerned businesses now recognize the harmful effects of environmental
toxins and have been inspired to take action to create better homes, better
schools, and a better planet. With Natural Systems Design, architects design
buildings according to principles of energy conservation and sustainable
ecology, eliminating pollution from the inside out. The Ontario, Canada
school system is one of the leaders in this clean up, through their creation
of ECO (environmentally controlled opportunity) classrooms. By using
full-spectrum lighting, natural building materials, and green cleaners and
solvents, administrators have improved the academic performance, health and
attendance of previously problem students.
In Chapter 17, readers learn how to identify and adjust hot spots
at home and school and to create living spaces that are nurturing as well as
clean, sensory soothing with natural design principles and non-toxic,
biodegradable cleaners. They also learn specific ways to change public
policy and educate their communities.
Chapter 18 – The Over-Stimulated Brain
and The Under-Stimulated Body. American children are under
stress. The average American youth watches 3 hours of TV a day, not
including time spent on video games and computers. Each year, they
encounter 14,000 sexual references and by the age of 18 over 200,000 images
of violence.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has
concluded that media violence increases the risk of aggressive behavior in
certain children and adolescents, desensitizes them to violence, and scares
them. The AAP followed their media report with the recommendation that
children younger than two should not be allowed to watch television, because
it stunts the development of their rapidly developing brains.
The sheer bombardment of images and sounds –
through television, video games, and computers – can be viewed as physically
and psychologically abusive to children. This overstimulation, when
combined with reduced activity creates stress in the body with no outlet for
it. The resulting accumulated adrenaline can produce anxiety and sleep
disorders, a growing problem among America’s youth. Children do not have the
emotional capabilities to deal with the adult world.
The AAP has also noted, “Increased television
use is documented to be a significant factor leading to obesity.” Obesity
affects one out of every five children today, leading to long-term problems
such as heart disease, Type II diabetes, and osteoarthritis.
Chapter 19 – Selling To Minors.
What is driving television today? Creative vision. Profits. Advertising.
Children see 25,000 commercials a year. On Saturday mornings 96 percent are
for unhealthy foods. Without a strong inner sense of personal values
children are highly suggestible, and they are being targeted as consumers.
Chapter 19 unveils the enormous engine that holds this economic system in
place, backed by research in youth spending, corporate ad strategies,
political lobbying, and consumer power.
Chapter 20 – The Solution: Turn It
Off…Turn Them On. Children need space and quiet for the
natural development of their bodies, minds, and emotions. They need guidance
and tools for making sense of the complexities of life.
Readers are inspired to empower their children
through the success stories of others such as the Binley family. Dr. Wade
Binley, his wife and three daughters have no cable TV in their home. Dr. and
Mrs. Binley feel that there is enough stimulation in the world outside. When
the girls have spare time at night, they do crafts, draw, play word games or
read. Every night the family has time to talk and bond with each other.
While parents have little control over outside influences on their children,
they have the ultimate authority in their own homes.
Chapter 20 helps parents track the daily
electronic stimulation their children are subjected to and gives pointers on
how to break the habits that affect their health. Parents learn how to limit
the time their children spend with the TV, video games, and computer. And
they rediscover the power of creative family time, and of making space for
quiet time, talking, and interacting with their kids each day.
Chapter 21 – Addicts in Training.
Nearly six million children in the United States between the ages of six and
18 are taking mind-altering drugs prescribed for alleged mental disorders.
While pharmaceutical drugs may eliminate some symptoms or improve a child’s
behavior in school, they do not treat the whole child. Today’s child is
learning that the way to solve a problem is to take a pill. These children
are caught in an insidious progression – from the toxic foods they eat to
the violent images they ingest electronically.
Chapter 21 takes parents down America’s
pharmaceutical path – the path creating a society of addicts who never learn
how to effectively deal with their problems. It investigates the links
between diet and behavior disorders, such as ADHD, and explores the
all-too-common evolution from prescribed drugs to illegal ones. It
describes the devastating effects these drugs have on children’s bodies and
the side effects that could be the explanation for some of our greatest
recent tragedies.
·
Eric Harris had been taking Luvox prior
to killing a dozen students, a teacher, and then himself at Columbine High
School.
·
Shawn Cooper, a high school sophomore in
Notus, Idaho, was taking Ritalin when he fired two shotgun rounds narrowly
missing students and school staff.
·
T.J. Solomon, a 15-year-old at Heritage
High School in Conyers, Georgia, was taking Ritalin when he opened fire on
and wounded six classmates.
While pharmaceutical companies hire physicians
to publicize the safety of their drugs, Charles Gant, MD, author of ADD
and ADHD – Complementary Medicine Solutions. (1999, MindMender
Publishers) warns, “We cannot afford to wait for the data to come filtering
in decades from now proving that the use of cocaine-like and
amphetamine-like drugs has rendered millions of kids brain-injured and
addiction-prone.”
Children’s bodies learn the addictive response
early through sugar, caffeine, food additives, and environmental toxins.
Carol Simontacchi, in her book, Crazy Makers, states, “Food is now
consumed to satisfy artificial cravings generated by a brain that
isn’t working right and whose receptor sites beg for synthetic stimulation
from chemicals.” Prescribing a psychotropic medication without addressing
these underlying causes increases toxic buildup and can seriously compound
the condition.
Chapter 22 – Antibiotics and
Immunizations. Antibiotics and immunizations have been on the hot
topic list for years. Many studies have shown that antibiotics are
regularly over prescribed, often at the request of anxious parents’ demands
for them. Yet, research on ear infections has shown that a child is more
likely to develop reoccurring ear infections with multiple rounds of
antibiotics than when no antibiotics are given. Generally, the overuse of
antibiotics can leave a child’s gut free from beneficial bacteria needed for
healthy digestion.
Much of the research is still out on the
possible link between immunizations and autism as well as other illnesses.
We will discuss what a parent should look for in vaccinating their child
like mercury free immunizations. We will also discuss the possibility of
waiting until the child’s system is older and more developed before
administering vaccines. This chapter will neither encourage nor discourage
the use of immunizations, rather bring to light the facts and raise
questions around the topic of immunizations.
Chapter 23 – The Solution: Clear And
Present Children. Today there are many highly successful
alternatives to drugs. Physicians treating alcohol and drug abuse with diet
and supplements are three times as successful as with traditional therapies
alone. Patients of William Walsh, Ph.D. have seen dramatic results with
personally designed supplement programs. Readers learn how homeopathy and
acupuncture are proving to be powerful modalities to heal all kinds of
concerns – from the common cold to behavioral problems such as ADHD.
Chapter 23 shows the reader when pharmaceutical
drugs may be appropriate. It acquaints readers with alternative choices:
how to choose health professionals who honor these principles and how to
create a “natural medicine” chest at home.
Part 8. Inner
Needs: Seed to Soul
Chapter 24 - How Do We Love All the
Children? Raising a New America has taken readers on
a journey through the developing minds, bodies, and lives of our children.
Parents have learned how toxic elements impair that development. And, they
have received practical instruction in how to rescue their children from the
risks. Yet at the center of the mind, body, and life of every child is a
soul, which also needs nourishment. The food it requires is love. Dr. Dean
Ornish, author and director of clinical research in heart disease, says that
the real epidemic in our culture is emotional and spiritual heart disease: a
profound sense of loneliness, isolation, alienation, and depression. Dr.
Ornish has demonstrated that comprehensive lifestyle changes can reverse
even severe coronary heart disease without drugs or surgery.
In previous chapters, parents have seen that
masking the breakdowns in children’s physical, mental, and emotional systems
- whether with medicine, TV, or food – is not love. Chapter 24 helps them
understand and respond to the deeper needs of their children: the need for
family bonding and creative expression, the need to be seen and heard, to
feel connected with the world. Chapter 24 asks parents to make a commitment:
to
help their children discover and express the
anger, the hurt and the hunger within them with responsibility, love and
understanding.
Parenting is more than providing food,
clothing, and shelter. Healthy food, a clean and safe environment,
meaningful activities, and freedom from quick-fix drugs provide a smooth
fresh canvas on which to paint. The image on that canvas – the quality of
life shared by both parent and child – is an intimate, creative act. In
today’s toxic world, good parenting is not enough to turn out good kids;
parents must be excellent parents to turn out good kids and outstanding
parents to turn out excellent kids.
Chapter 25 –
Our Children. Ourselves.
Theologian
Matthew Fox states in his book The Reinvention of Work, “If our own
souls are shrunken and small, we are a part of the problem, and our young
people are doomed to wander the Earth reinventing the wheel and falling more
deeply into despair. But if adults can get to work about the realities of
the soul awakening in our young, then there is hope.” Today, scientists and
doctors are joining theologians and mystics to say that this could be the
great work of our time: putting our inner houses in order, spending time
with our children, and helping them do the same.
Chapter 26 – The Solution: Practice and
Rituals. Chapter 26 shares a variety of stories of successful
families, organizations, and schools where children are thriving. For
example, at Crossroads School in Los Angeles, students participate in a
weekly “Council.” Sitting with others in a circle, each student takes the
talking stick to speak as they are moved. Though they speak 41 different
languages, Council teaches the value of diversity first-hand.
Chapter 26 shows parents how to nourish their
children with food for the soul. By providing insights into healing unmet
needs, communication tools and rituals to deepen family bonds, and
activities to help children discover and appreciate who they are, this
chapter shows the way to restoring communities one family at a time and
families, one child at a time.