Do certain foods cause behaviour issues?

[Muddytoes1]

When I was a kid I couldn’t have chocolate as it made me completely hysterical. We are having a really really hard time with 3.5 yo dd who has always been a challenge but has got increasing difficult and is now pretty much out of control and gets hysterical over the smallest things. It’s awful to watch her in so much distress. We have always tried to be super consistent but none of the usual stuff (reward charts, time outs, naughty step etc) work at all and if anything makes the situation worse.

I was thinking of the possibility of her diet? We feed her what I think is a pretty healthy diet so a typical day would be rice crispies or plain toast with fruit for brekkie, cheese/peanut butter sandwich with chopped veggies for lunch and then a from scratch dinner such as spaghetti, chilli, curry etc. Snacks usually fruit or crackers. She does have little treats though every couple of days like a tiny pack of choc buttons or a couple of biscuits. Soooo is it worth me cutting this stuff out? I thought they’d taken all the nasty stuff out of kids foods these days?

[surreygirl1987]

Worth a try, even if only in the short term, to see what happens. Diet does massively affect people's moods, and, by extension, can affect behaviour I guess. As far as I know I'm perfectly healthy and have no dietary issues as far as I am aware... but even I, as an adult, know that food affects my mood. And sugar craving and withdrawal is a real thing!