Food Refusal & Avoidant Eating in Children

Leave a comment 12/01/2020 hayleyfrancesnutrition

Introduction

In 2019 I was approached by a number of parents with children who might commonly be described as “fussy eaters”. Having a child with food difficulties can be enormously stressful and upsetting. It often has a family-wide impact, making families dread meal-times and avoid social occasions. At the point of contacting me mums, dads and grandparents are often at the point of tearing their hair out. E mails land in my inbox with subjects such as ‘HELP!’ or ‘Please help my child eat properly’; the situation feels desperate and miserable.

Winter Liver Detox

Leave a comment 30/12/2019 hayleyfrancesnutrition

Introduction

I’m not a big fan of frequent detoxing where there’s no real requirement or, indeed, proper guidance. For many, a detox is just another extreme swing of the pendulum, and I work with enough people with disordered eating to know that extremes are really easy for people when it comes to food – what they find hard is being flexible, instinctive and adaptable. There is often a misconception that detoxing equates to a diet of juices and smoothies, which is actually incorrect, since our liver requires nutrients that exist outside of fruits and vegetables in order to detox most effectively. We also have to consider that Spring, and specifically the Spring equinox, is actually the most natural time of year to clear out excesses, since with this bright season comes light, warmth and energy. Although January feels like the right time, because of the excesses of Christmas, seasonally it is still mid-winter and a time to feed our bodies through colder temperatures and darkness.

Having said that, I am writing this with a body that is fatigued and pleading with me to clean up. After a month of excess sugar, meat and alcohol, my skin is unhappy (I have some redness on my chin which is an indication of a clogged liver according to Chinese Medicine) and I feel lethargic, a bit low and quiet unlike myself. So, yes, January for me is going to include a liver clean-out. Read More

Food & Your Mental Health

Leave a comment 30/07/2019 hayleyfrancesnutrition

Back in May I delivered a Food & Mental Health talk at Clarks Head office in Street. There’s some useful information within this 45 minute session on how ‘food’ can support positive mental health. The nutrition within food has immense power to promote happiness, and you’ll watch me talk through a supplement prescription for depression, anxiety and stress, but the positives stretch far beyond micronutrients. Food connects us with nature and has profound social, cultural and educational benefits that make us significantly more balanced and healthy animals. Have a watch if you would like a little free support from a qualified and experienced nutritionist.

What does a child friendly packed lunch look like?

Leave a comment 19/05/2019 hayleyfrancesnutrition

I delivered a healthy packed lunch talk at a preschool recently and thought it would be useful to share the content more widely.

The first half of the talk focused on the 4 food groups that need to be included in a healthy packed lunch, namely:

Carbohydrates
Fat (animal and plant)
Protein
Vitamins & minerals (calcium in most lunches pleases)

Please see the grid below (the exact one I presented) which details each of the food groups, why our children need them and some example foods from each group.

Nutrition Prescription: Diabetes Type 2

Leave a comment 05/05/2019 hayleyfrancesnutrition

Have you been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes? If so, you really need to address your lifestyle and diet. I have written a basic nutrition and naturopathic prescription below which will hopefully help you make a good start. The advice here is not bespoke and doesn’t consider any other conditions you may suffer from, dietary preferences (vegan, vegetarian, religious restrictions), allergies and intolerances, weight, your job and timetable, your family situation and the severity of your condition. You really need to see a nutritional therapist with this diagnosis and buy yourself a Glycaemic Index and Glycaemic Load reference book, but in the mean time have a look at the below and start making some positive changes to your health:

Overweight: Childhood Obesity

Leave a comment 09/03/2019 hayleyfrancesnutrition

In this final instalment of my Overweight blog I want to talk about childhood obesity and how to prevent it. The blog so far as been quite factual, focussing on statistics and definitions. Tackling childhood obesity is a real passion of mine and I wanted to write about it more personally and emotionally.

Preventative nutrition is amazingly enjoyable for me. I see many adults really struggle to manage their weight and health after years of poor lifestyle and a disrupted relationship with food, and I’m not going to lie, reversal is harder work than just starting off on the right foot in the first place as children. There is nothing more satisfying that watching little ones devour their food with that intense hunger that comes with new life. I feel excited when my little-one clients start to eat better, and as a mum I am fulfilled and relaxed when Lexi has a good appetite for what I cook her. It makes me smile when she eats; fists clenched around a piece of mackerel or a giant strawberry, and olive oil smeared all over her chops.

Overweight: Poverty & Obesity

Leave a comment 13/01/2019 hayleyfrancesnutrition

In the last instalment of Overweight, we established that the UK is the 43rd most obese country in the world but also the most obese OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) country in western Europe, with well over 25% of the population having a BMI of 30 or above. When looking at England specifically, we also established that London (particularly Camden and Kensington) and Cambridge are the ‘least fat’ places in the UK, followed by the home counties and Kent. The north east of England has the highest obesity levels with over 75% of the population in Rotherham carrying excess weight. Yorkshire, Humber and the East Midlands are also ‘fatter’ than average. But what is it that causes one area of the country to be more ‘obese’ than another? There is undoubtedly a correlation between poverty and obesity, but which is causal? And are there any other demographic factors that link to obesity?

Overweight: The Geography of Obesity

Leave a comment 06/11/2018 hayleyfrancesnutrition

More than 603 million adults and 107 million children on this planet are obese, according to a report published in 2017 from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, based at the University of Washington in Seattle. The global population is approximately 7.5 billion, so the obese population represents around 5% of all children and 12% of all adults, globally.

Although the obesity levels in the United States always make headlines, it may come as a surprise to know that it’s not the US that tops the obesity chart but rather America Samoa and other South Pacific islands, where up to 75% of the populations are measured as obese. The weight of adults is increasing at four times the global average in this part of the world which could, in part, be due to the influence of colonial eating habits.

Overweight: The Definition of Obesity

1 Comment 22/10/2018 hayleyfrancesnutrition

Let’s begin by exploring the definition of obesity:

‘abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. A crude measure of obesity is the body mass index (BMI), which is a person’s weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of their height (in metres). A person with a BMI of 30 or more is generally considered obese. A person with a BMI of 25 or more is considered overweight’. (World Health Organisation)

The World Health Organisation acknowledges that this definition is crude, since ‘weight’ can be made up of fat, muscle and bone density, in differing proportions. Someone who is muscular with a high bone density could have a BMI that exceeds 25 but they are likely to be healthier than someone who simply carries abundant excess fat.