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spearheading a national marketing campaign, which
featured celebrities such as Paul McCartney, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Nealon, and
Ed Begley, Jr.
In 1998 she collaborated with Citizens For Health
(Boulder, CO), to launch a national campaign, Let’s Keep Organic, Organic.
The campaign broke U.S. Department of Agriculture records for consumer letters
received. The result was a rewrite of the policy that set national organic
labeling standards.
In 1998, with a Rockefeller grant, Campbell founded
Spirit In Action, Inc., an organization which exists to make the health and
welfare of American children the overriding consideration in all government,
corporate, and individual decisions. Campbell’s media projects bring awareness
to the complex interplay of nutritional, environmental, economic, social, and
cultural factors that negatively impact American youth while providing solutions
that are providing healing nationwide.
Campbell is sought after as a speaker at National
Products Expos, the National Nutritional Food Association (NNFA), The Science
Teachers Association and local PTAs around the country. She was the keynote
speaker at the 50th Anniversary conference of the American School Food Services
Association, and just recently spoke on a panel at the Whole Child Whole Planet
Expo in Los Angeles. Campbell, author of “a la Oils, The Essential Cuisine”, her
first cook-book scheduled for release in the fall of 2006, was also a guest in
the Celebrity Kitchen at the Whole Child Whole Plane Expo.
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My only child was born in 1969. I was thrilled, and
passionate about raising a healthy child. So, after reading Adele Davis'
Let’s Have Healthy Children, I ate whole foods and drank lots of
yeast-fortified milk during my pregnancy. When my son was born healthy
and strong, I nursed him for two months and then supplemented his diet with milk
formula, also fortified with yeast.
A couple of months later he had his first fever,
cold and ear infection, for which his pediatrician prescribed antibiotics and a
nasal decongestant. By nine months, he had had four ear infections.
Post-Eustachian drainage tubes cleared up the ear infections, but mucous
congestion and a runny nose continued throughout his young life. He was already
becoming resistant to antibiotics.
As he got older, my son was strong and active,
likable, unusually bright, and inquisitive. But he had continual allergies and
was often fidgety. And when he didn’t get his way he often acted out
inappropriately. We didn't have clinical terms like Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Learning Disabilities then to describe his
behavior. To us, they were just being kids; going through the phases kids go
through.
When he was 10, with the help of an allergy
specialist we eliminated all the common allergens: dairy, sugar, wheat, corn,
preservatives, food colorings, peanut butter and eggs. Within two weeks my son
looked and acted like a different child. His eyes were clear and his nose was
dry. He could sit still to study. He was calm, happy and attentive. He slept
quietly. The rebellious child disappeared. I was amazed. Even though I was
aware of nutrition, I had no idea that his physiology had anything to do with
his behavior.
I did my best to keep appropriate foods at home,
but I was a single mom working full time, and he was nearing his teens. Over
time many problem foods crept back in, and his behavior became erratic again.
Controlling any aspect of his life, let alone his diet, became a challenge.
At age 13, without my knowledge, he began smoking
pot and drinking alcohol; and the trouble mounted. I stayed close to home and
tried everything I could find to stabilize him. But at 18 he received his first
drunk driving charge, and at 19 he was incarcerated. His addictions progressed
until at age 23 he began to use methamphetamine. I painfully, powerlessly
watched him once again turn into a different human being.
My son was growing up with what health
professionals call a “silent inflammation.” His allergies, emotional
instability, and inability to focus were all the visible symptoms of an
invisible inflammation of his mental, physical, and emotional body caused by
physiological and biochemical imbalances that began in his first months of life.
Despite my commitment and perseverance I had missed my window of opportunity to
turn his life around. It was now in his hands.
At the height of his addiction, I read Diet For
A New America, by John Robbins. I was so moved by Robbins’ approach to
health and environmental issues that I went to work for his organization,
EarthSave International (ESI), where I learned that the Earth is also
experiencing a “silent inflammation” brought on by chemicals used in agriculture
and food manufacturing. At ESI, I helped develop a program to get healthier food
into public schools. I lectured to thousands of students across the country
about their relationship to the Earth and how food choices affect their bodies
and the planet. I also experienced the family values and qualities of life I had
craved. But it was too late for me to help my son develop those values for
himself.
It was too late for him when I found out that
antibiotics destroy a child's inner eco-system. By breaking down the delicate
balance of digestive bacteria that enable that child to be nourished by the
foods he or she eats, antibiotics set the child up for mental, physical, and
emotional symptoms like those associated with ADHD. It was too late when I
learned that even a little sugar could be devastating to a child with food
allergies and candida overgrowth.
I still ask myself what my son’s life might have
looked like had I known what we do now: that attention and behavior symptoms
usually clear up when the healthy balance of digestive bacteria is restored…
that addictions are eased when neurotransmitters are replenished through
hormones and nutrients. It was too late for him, but it has driven me to my
life work… and to the writing of this book.
I am not saying that my son’s struggles were solely
due to his diet and health care; the constellation of issues that affects a
child’s development is complex. But I am concerned with what our children are
eating, breathing, watching, thinking, and feeling. This book focuses on toxins
– chemical, environmental, agricultural, electronic, and social – and how to
consciously address them within a strong relationship with your child.
Many children today are fed full, yet still
starving. They need food for their bodies and for their souls. As their
parents, teachers, mentors and guides… we do too. I do not know of any greater
pain than giving your all as a parent only to have failed in your intentions. If
only I had known better.
Fortunately, there is a new paradigm – a way of
social and environmental integrity, in which many of us are attempting to walk.
This book is about those people, their stories and their methods: the health
professionals who develop new research and healing therapies, the entrepreneurs
who create healthy products, the farmers who grow organic foods, the social
activists who dedicate their lives to a future they may never see, the everyday
people who parent consciously, and the children whose creativity we cannot
afford to live without.
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