Loving mothers or simply deluded?
They’ve banned their children from eating bread, pasta or cake unless it’s gluten-free. But doctors warn this could dangerously backfire
WHEN her son and daughter spent the weekend with their father, Laura Docherty thought that they would probably return all smiles with tales of the happy times they had shared. The last thing she expected was that, as soon as Zara, seven, and Breac, five, arrived home, they would be struck down with crippling stomach aches. The cause? An illicit pizza that their dad, Alan, had treated them to.
Laura was furious. ‘Why give them food their bodies will react to?’ she says. ‘He knows they are gluten intolerant now.’
At first glance, her anger seems quite understandable, for no mother would want her children to fall ill unnecessarily.
But Zara and Breac don’t have coeliac disease, the incurable auto-immune condition that makes sufferers unable to eat gluten, which is found in wheat and other grains.
Indeed, both used to eat pizza and other foods containing gluten quite happily without suffering noticeable ill-effects.
But three years ago, Laura decided the whole family would be healthier on a gluten-free diet. Pasta, flour and countless other staples were taken off the menu.
The result? Thanks to their mother’s new regime, Zara and Breac have become so unused to gluten that if they do occasionally break the rules and have a pizza or biscuit, they now feel terribly unwell.
Not that Laura would ever consider allowing her children such small indulgences. For her, shunning gluten has become a way of life — even though there was never any proven medical necessity for her, or her children, to make such a dramatic change.
And she’s certainly not alone. Once, a gluten-free diet was a necessity only for the 1 per cent of the population with coeliac disease, for whom gluten causes diarrhoea, bloating and stomach pain. If left undiagnosed, it can lead to a damaged stomach lining, osteoporosis and even bowel cancer.
But today the number of people avoiding gluten has grown hugely. And it’s a trend fuelled as much by celebrities as scientific research.
Everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Lady Gaga has gone gluten-free — tempted no doubt, by the associated weight loss of a low-carb diet. And self-appointed experts have been eager, often with scant evidence, to link gluten to everything from autism to Alzheimer’s.
Needless to say, gluten-free products are big business in Britain with sales in 2014 reaching £184 million, an increase of 15 per cent on 2013. But while countless women have embraced gluten-free diets, often attracted by the promise of shedding a few pounds, should they force their otherwise healthy children to do the same?
Laura, a 42-year-old consultant, imposed her family’s gluten-free regime after a friend advised her to read cardiologist William Davis’s book Wheat Belly.
In it, Davis labels wheat a ‘chronic poison’ responsible for everything from arthritis to obesity. Experts have refuted many of its claims, but Laura became convinced that the gluten contained in wheat was an unnecessary evil.
But just cutting out bread and pasta was not enough, as gluten is also found in other grains, such as barley and rye. It is also used as a ‘filler’ in processed foods ranging from oven chips to baked beans.
So Laura threw out everything containing gluten in her kitchen in Wensleydale, North Yorks, after deciding it was weakening her children’s immune systems. Her evidence? ‘They seemed sluggish, had constant colds and caught measles right after chicken pox,’ she says.
Some might put this down to unlucky coincidence. But Laura was emphatic: gluten was to blame.
So what did the children’s father think of this? And how did the children cope with their new diets?
Laura — who is separated from Alan, 49, a sales representative — insists he was fine with the idea, and that neither child protested. She says: ‘I explained that oven chips were bad for them and Mummy would find alternatives. I made sweet potato chips and bought gluten-free burgers and wheat-free rolls.’
She believes the diet saw a rapid change in the children: ‘Within three months their eyes looked brighter, their skin clearer and their immune systems were boosted.’ But, six months into the glutenfree regime, Zara was accidentally fed pizza at nursery.
‘She became incredibly bloated. I realised she’d gone without gluten for so long that she was now totally intolerant,’ says Laura. ‘I feared the same would happen to Breac.’
However, instead of worrying that she had gone too far, she obtained a letter from her GP stating that both children were gluten intolerant, which she used to make their school supply gluten-free lunches.
Such alternatives typically cost
more than twice as ordinary meals. ‘It’s a disgrace that it costs more to be healthy,’ says Laura, who is unshakeable in her belief that gluten-free foods equate to good diet.
Indeed, she slimmed from a size 16 to a size 10 within eight weeks of shunning gluten. ‘My children have never been overweight but I think it would cut childhood obesity levels if children didn’t eat processed food with gluten,’ she says.
Although low- carb, gluten-free products can sometimes aid weight loss, they often contain extra sugar to compensate for lack of taste and texture. Regardless, Laura has grown increasingly militant about ensuring gluten-free fare is provided wherever her children go, although they are the only youngsters she knows on the regime.
‘If someone came to my house with a dietary requirement I would cater for it. I expect others to do the same — not least my children’s father,’ says Laura.
Sheadds: ‘All their friends’ parents have been happy to provide a plain chicken breast or gluten- free mince on play dates. Most are interested in their diet rather than critical, but I don’t care what anyone thinks anyway.’
For parties Laura packs them off with gluten-free sandwiches and forbids them from eating cake. ‘They may moan, but they’ll thank me when they’re older,’ she says.
Some experts are worried about the actions of parents like Laura.
‘For the vast majority of adults and children there are no sound medical or scientific reasons to adopt a gluten-free diet,’ says GP Dr Ian Campbell, former chair of the National Obesity Forum and former honorary clinical director of the charity Weight Concern.
Nutritional therapist Catherine Jeans has other concerns: ‘ I’ve seen a lot of adults brought up like this who have developed a very unhealthy relationship with food.
But Laura remains immovable. And since she separated from her husband, he has sometimes fed his children sandwiches and cake, as well as pizza. ‘his excuse is that a little bit won’t do them any harm — but it will,’ says Laura.
Another mother emma Fairhall, 43, has banned her 12-year- old daughter Charlotte from eating gluten because, surprisingly, she thinks it will help her grow taller.
‘Charlotte has always been tiny compared to her friends,’ explains emma, who lives in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, with her husband Paul, a personal shopper. They have a second daughter Isobel, seven.
‘I’m only 5ft 2in and Paul is 5ft 8in so she was never going to be tall, but Isobel is of average height. By the time Charlotte was ten, being small started to bother her.’
Three years ago emma, an events manager, took her daughter to hospital where tests showed normal levels of the hormones that control growth. But Charlotte continued to grow slowly. Today she is still only 4ft 3in — around eight inches below the average at her age.
This January, emma took Charlotte to see her GP who suggested gluten could be responsible. Some studies have shown that it can stop the pituitary gland in the brain from producing growth hormones.
Dr Campbell is sceptical: ‘There’s no good evidence to associate gluten with reduced growth.’
Perhaps understandably, emma leapt at the possibility of a solution, although the tests had been clear. ‘I didn’t think I had anything to lose by cutting out gluten from Charlotte’s diet,’ she says.
BUTmany have not been enthusiastic about the change. ‘If Charlotte was a coeliac everyone would understand but because it’s “only” her height at stake, people don’t think her needs matter,’ says emma. ‘Charlotte’s grandparents declared the whole gluten-free thing a fuss about nothing.
‘My mother-in-law even believes it is her duty to supply cakes and biscuits. On visits, I sometimes relent and Charlotte indulges, but with every mouthful I fear she’ll lose an extra inch off her height.’ Friends are similarly unhelpful. ‘We were given lasagne at a friend’s house, which Charlotte couldn’t eat. It was only afterwards the hostess admitted she had not realised it contained gluten,’ says emma. ‘Charlotte had to eat gluten-free snacks I keep in my bag instead.
‘If a friend decided to stop giving their child a certain food for health reasons I wouldn’t consider offering it to them. It would be nice if people were more respectful.’ And what does Charlotte think? ‘I appreciate what Mum’s doing, but being gluten-free is a pain,’ she says.
emma, packs her daughter gluten- free sandwiches for lunch, while her friends go to the school canteen. Charlotte says: ‘It’s hard being different when you’re 12.’
Regardless of the opposition, emma is resolute. And she thinks the new diet is working — as Charlotte has grown an inch recently.
‘Of course, we’ll never know how tall Charlotte would have been anyway, but we’ll carry on despite what anyone else thinks,’ she says.
Yet some children can be sensitive to gluten without being a coeliac. ‘There is evidence it can cause inflammation in the gut,’ says Catherine Jeans. An intolerance is rare but can be debilitating, as helen Lewis, 35, found. She banned gluten from her six-year-old daughter ellie’s diet after noticing her daughter’s stomach became distended after meals.
‘By three, ellie suffered stomach pains after eating,’ says helen, a director from Maidstone, Kent, married to Scott, 37, a civil servant. But the couple, who also have a younger daughter Macy, four, decided against having ellie tested for coeliac disease. ‘It would have involved her having to eat gluten-rich foods for over a month for doctors to assess the effects, which seemed unfair,’ says helen.
So they simply changed her diet — to good effect. ‘ellie didn’t complain. She was just happy that her stomach would stop hurting,’ says helen, who gives her daughter gluten-free packed lunches to take to school.
helen says: ‘I don’t doubt some people think gluten-free food is a fad but it has made an enormous difference to our daughter.’
Laura Docherty, meanwhile, says she won’t drop her family’s glutenfree diet. In fact, she says every parent should consider one: ‘Some kids are fortunate enough to have educated parents who think about what they’re putting into their kids’ mouths. Others are just lazy.’