Diet Restriction
Diet restrictions have become increasingly popular as a treatment for behavioral issues among a variety of conditions such as ADHD and General Anxiety Disorders. The Feingold diet has become popular as a diet to treat the symptoms of ADHD and focuses on restricting food additives and replacing them with Feingold approved foods. Although diet restrictions have become more popular recently, they are the least used treatment among behavior therapy and parent training because its ability to treat effectively is unknown. Perhaps the mediatization of the Feingold Diet will increase its popularity as a treatment for the symptoms of ADHD.
Feingold approved foods do not contain artificial flavors, coloring, or sweeteners, preservatives such as BHA, and salicyclates if not tolerated by the child. Salicyclate is a component in asprin that are added to some medicines and personal care items. This chemical is feared to make a child more sensitive to the artificial additives in foods so it is removed as a precaution at the beginning of the treatment and introduced and maintained as tolerated.
The Feingold Diet is has grown through media exposure as a food-related treatment for ADHD symptoms. Dr. Ben F. Feingold created the diet when he began his research on the allergy diet in 1965, and has since been the face of the treatment, and to an extent, diet alteration therapy (9). Parents, mostly mothers, posting on the Feingold Diet Facebook page claim the treatment as “life changing” and accredit its successful method to improving their child’s performance in school and resolving their anger issues (10).
The image above is a recent recipe posted on the Feingold Diet website for alternative food colorings to the traditional ones sold at the supermarket.
9. Friedman, Sharon M., Sharon Dunwoody, and Carol L. Rogers (eds). Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage of New and Controversial Science. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
10. The Feingold Association of the United States. http://feingold.org/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017.
