‘If you’re feeding these to your kids, you can almost guarantee they’ll have ADHD.’
I’m watching a video by a TikTok creator named Organic Tarzan that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. The food in question? Two boxes of popular children’s snack foods from Costco.
Are the snacks especially healthy or nutritious? No. But are they causing ADHD? Organic Tarzan, who describes himself as a ‘Marine Corps veteran with a background in kinesiology’, is convinced they do play a role. But the scientific data is lacking.
The comments sections of her videos are full of mothers sharing stories of how doctors tried to ‘push’ medication on their children with ADHD, only for their array of symptoms to disappear thanks to dietary changes.
‘They wanted me to medicate my eight year old for his ADHD,’ says one. ‘Instead I changed his diet to gluten-free and his behaviour changed in three days.’
‘Big Pharma won’t get its hands on my kids when I can cure their behaviour with diet alone,’ agreed another mother.
It’s understandable that parents would want to try every possible avenue before giving their children stimulant medication like Ritalin and Vyvanse. Seeing anecdotal accounts of miraculous three-day turnarounds no doubt offers hope.
But there is scant scientific backing of these claims, and even the most legitimate of the ‘ADHD diets’ comes with a big caveat.
One ‘treatment’ that has been back in the spotlight thanks to TikTok and Instagram
In classrooms, at coffee catch-ups between parents, in doctor’s offices and, notably, all over social media, one condition has had an explosion in awareness in recent years: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
‘ADHD is a formal neuro-developmental disorder where there are excessive and pervasive impacts on inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and emotional regulation,’ explains Dr Tim Jones, the Chair of Child and Young Person’s Health at the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP).
‘It manifests in many different ways across kids and adults.’
In 2018, about 186,000 Australians received ADHD medication (1.4 million prescriptions dispensed). By 2022, this more than doubled to 414,000 people (3.2 million prescriptions).
According to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme records, the number of Australians on ADHD medication grew by almost 300 per cent over the past decade, reaching about 470,000 people in 2022–23.
With an increase in both awareness and diagnosis, the conversation around alternatives to medication, particularly in children, has been reignited.
For many ‘ADHD mums’, dietary changes are the most common pathway.
An alarming number of the four-million-plus posts associated with the tag #ADHD on TikTok centre on diets that users claim can ‘cure’ the neurodevelopmental disorder, as well as the ‘wrong’ foods that supposedly cause it in the first place.
Dr Tim Jones says he’s aware of the Feingold diet ‘but only through patients showing me their social media feeds’
The Feingold diet, first introduced more than half a century ago, has made a comeback recently thanks to TikTok and Instagram. It is an elimination diet thought to reverse some of the symptoms of ADHD in children specifically.
Developed in the 1970s by Dr Benjamin Feingold, who hypothesised that artificial colours, flavours and certain preservatives could contribute to hyperactivity in children, the Feingold diet involves eliminating these additives, along with salicylates (naturally occurring compounds found in some fruits and vegetables), from a child’s diet to see if symptoms improve.
The diet soon gained popularity among parents of children with ADHD, some of whom reported improvements in behaviour. However, studies have found limited and inconsistent evidence to support its effectiveness, with only a small subset of children seeming to show any measurable improvement from following the plan.
The Feingold diet involves eliminating certain additives, sugary food and food colourings – but does it actually help?
While the Feingold diet may work for those children who are particularly sensitive to food additives – and it is worth trying under medical supervision if you believe your child falls into this category – experts warn parents must manage their expectations.
Studies suggest only between five and 10 per cent of kids with ADHD experience worsening symptoms due to food additives like artificial colours and preservatives.
That leaves up to 90 per cent of diagnosed children who do not fall within this subset and won’t benefit from this restrictive and hard-to-follow diet.
These numbers, of course, haven’t stopped social media creators from promoting Feingold as ‘the cure’ for ADHD while accusing ‘Big Pharma’ of destroying the diet’s credibility so they can push stimulants on children.
Dr Jones says he’s aware of the Feingold diet ‘but only through patients showing me their social media feeds’.
While studies have found a link between certain food additives and hyperactivity in children (with or without ADHD), Dr Jones adds: ‘We have absolutely no evidence to support the use of the Feingold or any other elimination diets in ADHD, and more broadly, we have strong evidence that they do not work.’
The RACGP does not endorse dietary modification as a useful medical intervention to treat ADHD, beyond the usual recommendation of following a healthy, balanced diet.
Dr Jones avoids dietary ‘names or fads’ when dealing with ADHD parents and instead likes to examine what specific foods may be making symptoms worse.
‘Genuinely, every family I work with just wants what’s best for their child,’ he says.
‘There are kids who are getting excessive exposure to sugar or caffeine or some of these other food additives, and it is exacerbating their symptoms.
‘It’s therefore very reasonable to then look at working on healthy eating as a whole family, in those cases.
‘Having said that, in no way would we say this is what’s caused their [ADHD], and in no way would we be promising that diet [can] make a difference. We’re more just talking about the general principles of living well and living in good health being broadly of use to all.’
Dr Jones says his greatest concern about parents exploring alternatives like the Feingold diet is that they may be refusing or delaying evidence-based treatment.
‘We know early intervention works,’ he explains.
‘If you’ve got these kids with these vulnerabilities, and you adopt behavioral strategies and teaching strategies to support them engaging in their learning and in their self-development early, that is going to make the biggest difference.’
Dr Jones adds that for parents who are reluctant to try medication as a first course of action, they can rest assured there are other evidence-based interventions that can and should be tried first.
‘If a child is under six in Australia, the first-line interventions are behavioural interventions,’ he explains.
‘These interventions look at how that child communicates with their family, how they engage in their world and how they are supported in the school environment, and medication is not endorsed as a first-line strategy in those children.’
Dr Jones says three factors have contributed to the rise in ineffective alternative solutions being touted as viable treatments for ADHD in children.
Firstly, the overwhelming amount of available information online; secondly, a struggling education system that lacks the resources to give children the right kind of engagement in learning; and thirdly, the lack of accessible continuity of care.
‘When I was a kid, my parents, who were very experienced parents, still really found it very challenging. But they could get into a GP easily,’ he says.
‘They were sometimes seeing the GP for weekly support. And now we’ve got a situation where so many families don’t have that long-term relationship with a trusted GP to just go through all the thick and thin of life, and help you make those good decisions as you move through parenting your kids.’
