Kids & Nutrition Part 2: Chronic Illness on the Rise

If you know me (and most of you do, you are my people!), you know I do not shy away from controversy. I’m generally well prepared for a good debate (I mean, I DID make it to state in debate a couple of times in high school, just saying), and I love to swap research with people.

That said, one of the topics that I spent a decent amount of time researching in graduate school was chronic illness in children.

A study done in 2010 (based off on 2007) data showed that an estimated 43% of US children (32 million) currently have at least 1 of 20 chronic health conditions assessed, increasing to 54.1% when overweight, obesity, or being at risk for developmental delays are included; 19.2% (14.2 million) have conditions resulting in a special health care need, a 1.6 point increase since 2003. And really, if we are being honest, this data is grossly outdated. If we include anxiety and emotional health post-covid, these numbers are going to be significantly higher.

One could go round in circles about why this is: from lack of outdoor time to environmental toxins, from too much TV to fluoride in the water, there are dozens of theories that all likely play some role in this.

What I do know is that our children deserve better. And while so much of the world is out of our control, what IS in our control is what we feed our kids, how we support their immune systems, and how much movement and activity we can engage them in.

Let’s talk about food first.

Last week we explored some great first food options. As kids get older and more independent, peer pressure seeps in (Mooooom, Nico had candy for HIS lunch!), taste buds change and can become more restrictive (although this is not inevitable), and we are parents often opt for the path of least resistance (guilty!). It might start off as the occasional fast food run, or meals made from a box just on Friday…but before you know it, you find yourself in the drive-thru line daily or making Mac & Cheese on autopilot.

First of all, this is not entirely your fault—our food system is not set up to support easy access to healthy foods, and fast food junk is literally engineered in a lab to be perfection to your taste buds. It’s designed to be addictive. And it is.

From a fundamental level, food has the power to heal our bodies, but it also has the power to hurt. Generally speaking, what naturally grows in this world is meant to be eaten (of course, there are some exceptions, which we’ll cover). Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells and quadrillion bacteria, all relying on molecules in our food and water to keep you alive. When we feed our body good foods from the ground (and from well-treated animals), your body will thank you.

Now back to kids. And this is where I might start to get a little unpopular. When we start feeding them junk, we should expect junk coming out: behavior issues, depression, poor attention, sensory processing disorders, ADHD, anxiety, poor sleep, autoimmune diseases, eczema, and on and on. And they often feed off of each other in a horrible, cyclic relationship that is super tricky to break up.

We see in the research that children with ADHD and autism have sky-high rates of nutrient deficiencies. Same for kids and teens with anxiety and depression. In the studies on young children with ADHD and autism, the results are staggering when the deficiencies are addressed. Their families report improvements in almost every marker of behavior, attention, gastrointestinal issues, language acquisition, and more. Same for older children with anxiety and/or depression. Heal the deficiencies, heal the gut, heal the brain.

I could go down the rabbit hole of gut health and brain health but then I’d need a LOT more of your time, and I’m going to try and wrap it up here pretty soon. Just know that these two are deeply interconnected…and I’ll do a blog on them soon.

Much of our food is also lacking in nutrients that typically came from the soil, but because of poor farming practices and the use of glyphosate, which has literally killed our soil, much of our food doesn’t contain nearly the level of minerals that it used to. So, even if your child is an excellent eater, there is still a likelihood that there are deficiencies anyway.

Additionally, how we harvest and process wheat in this country has greatly intensified the level of gluten in our grains. Studies have shown that gluten slowly wears down our gut lining, creating “leaky gut”, which leads to digestion byproducts entering into the bloodstream where they don’t belong. Many functional doctors believe this alone is to blame for the rise of autoimmune diseases in this country. Children with autism have sky-high levels of zonulin, which is the marker for leaky gut. Truth be told, if you eat gluten (literally in all traditional bread products), you will have some level of zonulin floating around in your body. This is an example of a food that isn’t necessarily unhealthy, but could be wreaking havoc on your body.

Additionally, our kids are generally inside more than they used to be (where the air is generally less healthy), they don’t get the exposure to dirt, soil, and sand, and we protect them vigorously from germs. Several studies actually show that children who live on farms and/or with pets actually have stronger immune systems and lower rates of allergies and asthma because of all the grossness (sorry to the pet owners and farmers out there) that those animals share with them.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I was a germ-avoider like everyone else (until I had kids). That’s when I realized that it was actually the wrong message to send to my kids. The greater interaction with the outside world, including various viruses and bacteria, the better off their immune systems would be.

The immune system is complex, yet also beautifully simple. It needs triggers to work. It needs to be exposed to “antigens” (the fancy word for anything that triggers an immune response), to be able to create immune memory in its cells. This helps it remember the pathogen and will allow it to fight it off easier next time. It also allows it to respond to similar antigens and be able to attack and kill those with relative ease too. There is more to it than just antibodies, which are a hot topic in the news. Just relying on antibody production is to not fully understand the depth of the immune system. I’ll leave it there, but the moral of the story is, we need to teach our body to recognize pathogens when we are little and have strong innate immune systems to help keep us healthy when we are older.

Ok, this is starting to get longer than I wanted it to, so let’s close the loop.

Unhealthy immune systems lead to chronic disease.

This is true in just about every instance I can think of, minus developmental delays, and that is actually debatable in some circles. There is some emerging evidence that considering autism an autoimmune disease is not terribly off-base. From asthma to anxiety, to autoimmune disease, and even obesity to some degree, there is a component of a malfunctioning immune system.

It takes time, patience, and intention to heal an immune system that has gone haywire. The best time to support a child’s immune health is from the day they are born. As they age, exposure to dirt, healthy whole foods, and sunshine are a great start to foundational health.

If your child has any skin condition, anxiety, depression, or autoimmune disease and you are interested in getting to the root cause, you are in the right place. Dig into what might be causing your child’s symptoms. If you aren’t sure where to start, I always recommend finding a naturopath or holistic practitioner who can help you weed through it all. Healing the gut and chronic illness in children is not easy, it takes time and effort, but it will definitely be worth it.

Here’s to your (and your child’s) health,