By BENISON O’RIELLY
Why does my child have autism?
It’s the difficult question that thousands of parents have asked. And it’s one with no easy answers.
But tell that to a celebrity “health expert”.
Lacking the knowledge to know what they don’t know, these people confidently —and with monotonous regularity — wade in with their opinions on incredibly complex health conditions, spouting simplistic theories, offering hokey solutions and causing no end of mischief.
The latest: Pete Evans, celebrity chef from Channel 7’s My Kitchen Rules and self-appointed Paleo diet expert. In a recent Facebook rant against the Heart Foundation and the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA), reported earlier by Mamamia, Mr Evans said this:
Why has our rate of autism jumped from 1 in 10000 children in 1974, to 1 in 50 in 2014, where do you think it will be in another 40 years if it is escalating at this rate? This has grown rapidly since the guidelines have been in place!
Oh, so that explains why my son has autism. It’s all due to his diet. I wonder why the thousands of autism researchers around the world didn’t think of that? Who knew they’d all been wasting their time with their genetic studies and brain imaging and early intervention when all they had to do was ask a celebrity chef.
The quote Pete posted on Facebook
Top Comments
Scientific fact says diet & genetics both affect ASD, even from the womb. (see link below) Whilst there is only evidence, not proof that paleo style diets might work, why would you throw a negative light on encouraging people with these disorders to eat real fresh food? Scientifically based or not, surely this can't be bad for you? Why don't you keep tally marks of all the food with numbers or names of ingredients you can't pronounce in your day? It's pretty scary what things we are obliviously happy to put in our childrens & our own bodies. I am not Paleo, I just believe in eating as much real food as I can for my family. Surely there's better things to knock! http://www.autism.net.au/Au...
I don't think that the author was knocking or being negative about the Paleo lifestyle and does state that there is in fact evidence of change in symptoms with a change of diet. What she was in fact stating was that we, being parents of children with Autism, are getting very tired of Celebrities claiming to be experts after "researching" their latest fad for all of about 5 minutes without actual scientific evidence or considering the effect is has on parents, when they throw all their faith in these so-called miracle cures and find that the results last only as long as the celebrities interest until they move on to their next fad, leaving Parents back at square one with nowhere else to go. Lets stop trying to find something or someone to blame and lets learn to love and embrace our Brilliant Different children who have so much to offer humanity, like acceptance and tolerance.
Catalyst on the ABC recently devoted 2 shows to research showing how increasing fibre in the diet is curing diseases like MS in mice. There are hopes this research will lead to answers for humans. Regardless, what scientists are now beginning to look at in a big way is diet. And it's funny because that's what natural therapists have been saying for decades. Only doctors called them quacks and made us all feel stupid for listening. I wonder who the history books will show were the real quacks!