Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Exercise, food and other supports
There is usually more to lose by forbidding it. A family who feels blocked either does it anyway without telling you or spends another year searching. A time limited attempt with a review date in the diary tends to end the search faster than a lecture does, as long as the child keeps eating enough throughout.
He has placed no hardship in your religion (Quran 22:78). If a plan is turning a family's daily life into hardship, that alone is a fair reason to stop it.
الحج
وَجَٰهِدُواْ فِي ٱللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِۦۚ هُوَ ٱجۡتَبَىٰكُمۡ وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ فِي ٱلدِّينِ مِنۡ حَرَجࣲۚ مِّلَّةَ أَبِيكُمۡ إِبۡرَٰهِيمَۚ هُوَ سَمَّىٰكُمُ ٱلۡمُسۡلِمِينَ مِن قَبۡلُ وَفِي هَٰذَا لِيَكُونَ ٱلرَّسُولُ شَهِيدًا عَلَيۡكُمۡ وَتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِۚ فَأَقِيمُواْ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَءَاتُواْ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ وَٱعۡتَصِمُواْ بِٱللَّهِ هُوَ مَوۡلَىٰكُمۡۖ فَنِعۡمَ ٱلۡمَوۡلَىٰ وَنِعۡمَ ٱلنَّصِيرُ
Strive hard for God as is His due: He has chosen you and placed no hardship in your religion, the faith of your forefather Abraham. God has called you Muslims––both in the past and in this [message]––so that the Messenger can bear witness about you and so that you can bear witness about other people. So keep up the prayer, give the prescribed alms, and seek refuge in God: He is your protector––an excellent protector and an excellent helper
Qur’an 22:78read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
It helps to say out loud what the ceiling looks like. A Cochrane review of physical activity and dietary interventions in children with overweight or obesity found small improvements in cognition and school achievement, on low certainty evidence. Different population, different question, and still about the most generous shape this kind of evidence takes.
Martin A, Booth JN, Laird Y, Sproule J, Reilly JJ, Saunders DH. (2018). Physical activity, diet and other behavioural interventions for improving cognition and school achievement in children and adolescents with obesity or overweight.. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
People stop searching when they feel they have looked properly, not when they are told to stop looking.
Any restrictive diet in a child needs dietetic oversight so growth and nutrition do not suffer.
Cutting sugar does not improve ADHD, and nor does stripping out additives. Both have been tested repeatedly, including under conditions where nobody knew which child had eaten what.
Sensory integration training is popular and it does not help ADHD. Whatever value it has elsewhere, the capacity it works on is not the one that is impaired here.
Kava, valerian, St John's wort, ginkgo, ginseng and the proprietary blends have not shown benefit for ADHD in trials that matched the amount in every capsule and kept both the person handing them out and the person rating behaviour unaware of who got what.