Health Articles > Health-and-nutrition > Child Abuse And A Poor Diet Connection: Needs A Closer Look

If anyone thinks they have not been affected by child abuse, looking at current statistics should tell you otherwise. The costs of child abuse in the United States has been estimated to be around $94 billion. That would appear to affect every taxpayer in every community across the nation. Of that $94 billion, roughly $55 billion is attributed to adult criminal behavior linked to early child abuse. When children are victims of sexual or other forms of severe and chronic abuse, it can cause a lasting impact on their developing brain. Chemical changes develop to create response patterns that can continue through out a lifetime. Calculating the dollar amount of child abuse on communities begins with the need for more services that are funded by taxpayers with needs such as: 1.School programs for at risk children. 2.Lost productivity programs for the adult unemployed or underemployed. 3.Increased need for crime prevention and incarceration services. 4.More mental and physical health care programs. People then begin to understand the epidemic proportions that child abuse brings with other related issues to their communities. The child advocacy Center reports that one in three girls and one in four boys will be sexually abused by the age of eighteen. Dysfunctional household situations where someone was in prison, a mother treated violently, there was an alcoholic or drug user, a chronically depressed parent, mental illness or a suicidal influence accounted for most of the recurrent causes of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. A common denominator of nearly all child abuse survivors is they also have some type of an immune deficiency such as: lupus, multiple sclerosis, cancer, arthritis, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue. Researchers have also uncovered increased likelihood of heart disease, fractures, diabetes, obesity, unintended pregnancies, alcoholism, and sexually transmitted diseases. Although diseases such as these also affect those who have not been severely abused as children, a closer look at this information is important. What clues are we being given in this research data on the abnormal physical health problems of an abused child into adulthood? How might diet interventions change the long term and overall outcome of child abuse? Might not it be possible to apply objectively proven nutritional diet strategies that have overwhelmingly demonstrated relief of disease symptoms of those diseases mentioned above in study after study? By trying the tried and true method of of disease prevention through nutritional means and applying it at the earliest possible age deserves a chance in mainstream application. Although this technique alone would clearly not eliminate the need for counseling services for the abused, it may just be the simplest method to use as a first step prevention method in providing long lasting results. While we are waiting for a better prevention model and others to light the way for us, America is definitely sick and getting sicker. Our nation is not listening to the impact poor nutrition has on our society Whether it be hearts, lungs, kidneys, or brains, all body organs need fed properly to function normally. Brain health is treatable through a proper diet. Lack of proper feeding produces disease. The better prevention model is here right now and has been proven to work! Body, mind, and spirit are as one and treating each body part separately, as in what the conventional drug model does, will be a model that will eventually be doomed to fail.