Gluten Free Tips

Archive for the ‘Teenagers’ Category

Gluten Free Teenagers
The teenage years and can represent a problem for parents with children who have coeliac condition and gluten free teenagers are not the easiest to live with. It is at this time in life that your child grown and comes to challenge accepted reason and the need to maintain a gluten free diet is one truth that is not readily accepted.

When your child was a baby and was first diagnosed with coeliac condition, requiring a gluten free diet, the responsibility for maintaining this regime was yours. Whilst no doubt the responsibility weighed heavily on your shoulders the decisions were yours to make and no doubt you have brought your child up reasonably gluten free and thriving.

Having seen the impact on gluten on your child’s health there was no debate as to whether a gluten free diet was required. Indeed most parents are so pleased to understand that the solution to their child’s coeliac condition is merely the discipline of exclusion of gluten from their diet that they just move straight on to the new way of life.

Unfortunately, your teenager will not remember the impact that gluten had upon them when they were a baby. They will see that the food regime of gluten-free teenagers is restrictive and they will want to rebel against this. Now let battle commence.

Sometimes the medical requirements for a gluten challenge test will come to your world. As coeliac condition is difficult to diagnose in babies you may find that your doctor will want you to undertake a coeliac gluten challenge to fully establish that gluten was the cause of your baby’s problems and not some other food product such as milk. The symptoms of lactose intollerance are similar to coeliac condition and gluten intolerance. The period of a gluten challenge can extend from two weeks up to six weeks and feeling unwell for this period of time no doubt will bring your gluten-free teenagers back to their senses.

If there is no requirement for a gluten challenge in the teenage years you will just have to to accept that your teenager needs to experiment and come to understand the impact of gluten on their health. Sometimes the more you become involved and stress what is sensible the more unproductive the discussions are.

Gluten-free teenagers are not easy dinner companions but rest assured after a few years they develop into sensible gluten-free adults.