The Skinny On Organic Food

This is part two in our series on the impact of organic food on children and health. The full article (listed at the end of this post) is from The Organic Center and is filled with impressive scientific data and studies showing a wide range of benefits of consuming organic food. This installment looks at how organic food can be a key element in helping children develop healthy weight and maintain that for a lifetime. Numerous studies show that the presence of a variety of pesticides in the mother's blood stream during pregnancy and the ingestion of these pesticides by young children had a significant impact on children's bodies and in particular, the hunger mechanism. Researchers are beginning to evaluate how exposure to other environmental toxins during pregnancy, such as pesticides, may increase a child’s body mass index during the early years, and possibly later in life (Verhultst
et al., 2009; Smink et al., 2008).

Exposure to multiple environmental toxins during pregnancy has been linked to a higher body mass index in off spring. For example, exposure to cigarette smoke and DDE 4 (DDE – the main metabolite of the pesticide DDT), were linked to a higher body mass index in toddlers (Verhultst et al., 2009). In another study, researchers found that children whose mothers were exposed to hexachlorobenzene (a fungicide) during
pregnancy had a higher risk of being overweight at 6 years of age (Smink et al., 2008). Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) also reported that brief exposure early in life to environmental endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals (especially diethylstilbestrol - DES) resulted in increases in body weight as mice aged (Newbold et al., 2007).

Enough with the science class - the gist of this, as you can clearly see, is that exposure to chemicals has been shown to increase body mass.

In addition, other studies show that the children of pregnant women and nursing mothers who ate healthy, nutrient dense fruits and vegetables were far more accepting of fruits and vegetables in their diets than were those whose mothers did not eat fruits and vegetables. Food's flavors apparently are found in both amniotic fluid and breast milk and children develop food preferences very early.

The bottom line - pregnant and nursing women should consume organic foods, especially nutrient dense foods including organic fruits and vegetables. They will help their children develop normal metabolisms and lower the risk of obesity in childhood and adulthood as well as foster a healthy appetite for healthy food.

More on this series in an upcoming blog post.

What do you think? Thoughts, comments, insights always welcome here!


You can read the full article from the Organic Center by following this link:
http://www.organic-center.org/reportfiles/That_First_Step_Full.pdf