A private and well-sought-after professional in Naturopathic Medicine and a Reflexologist, Dr. Stan Horne, is not yet a licensed practitioner in Anguilla, but is gaining much attention as a radio, church and community personality.
One of his latest public appearances was at the Church of God (Holiness) on the Queen Elizabeth Avenue – where he worships – on Sunday night, February 28. There, in cooperation with Pastor Philip Gumbs, he spoke to a gathering on Nutrition & Behaviour in the schools and the community. His presentation was well-received and resulted in a number of questions to which he provided answers with much satisfaction. Previously, he has been to other churches including St. Augustine’s Anglican Church. He is a regular speaker on Upbeat Radio and has also been on Radio Anguilla.
Asked about his recent lecture at the Church of God (Holiness) he told The Anguillian newspaper: “I wanted for parents and teachers, and other community members, to begin to think about the impact of nutrition on behaviour. The session was based on things that are going on in the schools in Anguilla, but that are not endemic to Anguilla because it is happening all over the Caribbean. I wanted to start the ball rolling to get us thinking about how we can incorporate more wholesome nutritious foods in children’s diets – so that such foods can reduce anti-social behaviour like bullying, fighting; not wanting to go to school; not wanting to work; enabling them to stay on task; and improving concentration and focusing. As I said, it is all across the Caribbean.”
Dr. Horne continued: “What qualifies me to say this is that besides the fact that I know about nutrition, is that I have been a single parent for a number of years, with my son. I took him to school and prepared his lunches and so forth. We had a schedule as to how things would work out during the course of the day because I had to work; he had to go to school and had to be picked up… I did my graduate studies in Special Needs Education and taught in a school for about a year in New York. I thought, after that, I shouldn’t do this because it was so limiting.
“My presentation was to get people thinking about how nutrition could really make a difference in how our children and we behave. The research and evidence are there to show that when hardened criminals and juveniles in detention homes were given a wholesome diet, their anti-social, criminal and violent behaviours dropped as high as 30 percent. There were also studies of children in school in the United States. We here in the Caribbean seem to eat a lot of things that the people there eat, so it could apply to us as well. Four hundred and seventy children were in a study and half of them were given a nutritional supplement – and the other half was given a placebo. What was noticed was that 47 percent of anti-social behaviour dropped because of the diet with the wholesome foods that these children were eating. Their anti-social behaviour included bullying, fighting, truancy and other matters. This compared to the children who did not have the nutritional supplement that had the placebo.”
Dr. Horne added: “The idea is to at least think about considering mainstreaming nutrition in schools for children, and for parents to start at home. This is because many children go to school with a lot of cookies in their lunch kits, and box drinks from concentrate and those kinds of things. It is a lot of sugar. Sugar is a major culprit in hyperactivity in children. When you take away the sugar, their behaviour comes down. There are other things like additives and colourings and preservatives, salts and fats in foods that damage their bodies. Remember children are developing and they need proper foods.”
Dr. Horne is a highly-qualified professional from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. He is married to Mrs. Valerie Beach-Horne, the Country Representative for the Pan American Health Organisation, working with the Ministry of Health in Anguilla.
He attended the State University of New York, at Cortland, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Public & School Health Education. He later completed a Master’s degree programme in Special Needs Education at the City University of New York.
In 1988 he returned to St. Vincent and the Grenadines where he worked with young people. He later furthered his studies in the United Kingdom at the School of Complementary & Naturopathic Medicine, where he received his Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine credentials. He is presently studying for his PhD in Natural Health from the Kingdom College of Natural Heath in the United States.
Dr. Horne has over thirty years experience working in the health and social work fields – across cultures in the US, UK and the Caribbean.
