The Health of Your Family:
How to Achieve the Unfair Advantage
By Dr. John-Thomas Giudice, DC
One of the objectives of the family wellness practice is to provide advice to parents and their children on how to
improve lifestyle habits. When looking at the average American family, it may appear from the surface to be healthy, but look closer and you may well find that the parents have adopted poor lifestyle habits, which directly transfer to the overall wellness of their children.
In today’s society, often the morning routine is stressful and rushed. Parents or children may miss a healthy breakfast, which results in improper nutrition, either subtle or overt. Lunch and dinner are equally important mealtimes. Planning our meals is one of the best things we can do for overall wellness. It is alarming how many adults and children have diets too high in fat, over-processed grains, and sugar.
Balance in our lives must also include a look at the way lifestyles create the amount of emotional stress we have and how this affects our ability to cope and adapt in healthy ways. Today’s family life often includes rushing to pick up children at after school day care or the busy race around town for after school programs. Children and parents are coming home late in the day only to race off to finish homework, last minute memos or obligations from work. Dinner used to be the one time that the entire family would sit down and spend time together. It has now largely been replaced by drive-through windows, take-out and eating in front of the television, diminishing the amount of quality time spent with the family. An unhealthy, stressful lifestyle is a primary cause of imbalance in the nervous system and a state of fight or flight in the body. This condition can only be detected with the proper consultation and evaluation and only then can appropriate education and intervention correct the cause and stop the damage before it leads to a state of disease. Yet, it is important to note that it is not difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Wellness chiropractic is a true health care system that considers all types of stress and its effect on the individual’s ability to be well. After a thorough consultation and evaluation, the chiropractor makes appropriate care and lifestyle recommendations to correct the cause of the problem, not just the symptoms. The chiropractor acknowledges and understands that there are three causes that may lead to a condition called "vertebral subluxation": physical stress, chemical stress, and mental/emotional stress. Often adults don’t realize the results of physical, emotional and chemical stress and the resulting symptoms which may include fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, headaches, loss of drive, digestive disorders, and overall poor health.
Children are also very sensitive to stress. If parents are feeling the effects of stress in their lives, it is inevitable that their children are also being affected. The effects that these stresses have on children do not always present the same as in adults. Children may have disturbed sleep patterns, nightmares, bedwetting, decreased attention, dropping grades, irritability towards others, hyperactivity, withdrawn behaviors, headaches, and weight changes to name a few.
Just as it is important for parents to take care of their health, it is equally important to have their children’s health evaluated. Living a lifestyle of wellness will have amazing effects on health and well being, giving a child an unfair advantage. Wellness chiropractors promote a wellness approach towards health care that addresses all the causes of stress and vertebral subluxation not only for parents, but for children also. By removing the vertebral subluxation, the body is able to function and heal more effectively.
When a family comes in together for chiropractic care, they are coming together as a united team with the desire to have a healthy immune system, balance in the musculoskeletal system, decrease in nervous system interference, and an enhanced ability to handle the daily stresses of life.
_________________________________________________
Dr. John-Thomas Giudice is a board certified Doctor of Chiropractic. He has advanced training in wellness, nutrition, sports, and cervical spine neurology. His practice focuses on wellness care especially family health and wellness. He uses the latest technology developed by the Chiropractic Leadership Alliance and certified by the Space Foundation to detect interference to the nervous system and hidden health problems in order to help practice members reach their wellness goals. Dr Giudice is a graduate of New York Chiropractic College and Quinnipiac College.
March 2008 newsletter