The Irish and British governments need to think about rolling out a programme to educate and train the public and those involved in the care of children in diet and nutrition, a conference in Galway has been told.
Dr Alex Richardson, a UK researcher into the effects of nutrition on the body and brain, pointed out that vets were trained in nutrition, but medical doctors were not.
"It's all down to education and training. Most people are going wrong because of sheer ignorance about nutrition. Their main sources of information are people with vested interests like the food and pharmaceutical industry," she told The Irish Times.
Dr Richardson highlighted the need to get independent unbiased sources of educating people about the use of food as nutrition and nourishment rather than just as a fuel for energy.
"The message is coming through from the medical associations now. A new study has found that a third of all cancers can be explained by dietary factors and we already know about the link between heart disease and diet.
"We also need to look at what we are doing to our brains and behaviour through our diets and this is where a time bomb has been building up."
Dr Richardson, author of They Are What You Feed Them, was speaking at the fifth annual childcare conference hosted by the Galway City and County Childcare Committee on Saturday on the theme of How food can improve your child's behaviour, mood and learning.
She pointed to the fact that behaviour had become a major issue threatening the education of all children - the WHO predicts a 50 per cent rise in child mental disease by 2020 and conditions such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD and autism are all on the increase.
"We are told autism-related conditions have a genetic basis but the human genome has not changed in the last 20 years so the causes of this increase must be environmental, ie to do with our diets and lifestyle," she said.
While she was not saying there was no place for tried and tested medications in the treatment of behavioural disorders in children, Dr Richardson said they should be used as a last resort after a thorough assessment, including a dietary assessment.
She believes many behavioural problems can be addressed with adequate nutrition and pointed out that individual children have different nutritional requirements because of their biochemical makeup.
"Prof Michael Crawford warned the UK government in the 1970s that heart disease might be the big health issue of the day, but brain disorders would be next and he was right. The cost of mental health disorders to the EU is €360 billion and that is only the ones who present for treatment, there are a lot more who have not been officially diagnosed."
She highlighted the need for nutrition to become an integral part of the school curriculum and for children to be taught how to prepare simple basic nutritious meals.
"It dismays me to see people eating on the go as they walk along the street. You can't digest food like this, you need to sit down and take time to eat," said Dr Richardson.
