Your Child’s Gut Health Matters More Than You Think

Every year we hear it.

That familiar and dreaded phrase, repeated with almost weary resignation by parents, teachers, and even the doctor: “It’s that season again!” I hear it, and I even repeat it myself on a daily basis, just as a kind of background, casual, noncommitted conversation filler.

Parents whom I haven’t seen all summer start coming in after the second or third week of school—

“The whole family is down for the count.”

“We were doing so well all summer, but now we can’t seem to kick this bug.”

“We just keep passing this thing around!”

Back-to-school sickness has arrived!

One child gets sick, and then it begins working its way through the household, and sometimes it just seems to stick and keep coming back around despite all of our precautions and herbal preparations!

The common consensus is that it is because the weather is changing and temperatures are dropping—so we try to make sure everyone has socks on and takes a jacket; or there’s less sunlight and more time indoors—so we start the vitamin D. Maybe it’s because the kids have gone back to school—five days a week in classrooms filled with other children and plenty of opportunities to share germs, which is certainly viable.

But didn’t we spend the summer at theme parks and restaurants? At malls, cookouts, and pools? Didn’t we have sleepovers and play with friends? Not to mention church, Sunday School, and VBS! All the fun summer stuff happened—they weren’t exactly living in a bubble all summer!

Have you ever wondered why there are always those few children who seem to weather every contagion without being touched? Or when all the other kids are down with flu, this one child gets a sniffle for a day and is back to normal the next? What makes them different?

The general consensus is that he or she simply has “a great immune system” or “good constitution.” Like it’s something you were either born with, or you weren’t.

I don’t know about you, but I get tired of the merry-go-round of sickness! How come, in this amazing age of miracle cures, the ability to transplant organs, amazing technology, and constant new discoveries, there is STILL no cure for the common cold? Or is there?

And doesn’t it seem like autoimmune diseases and conditions are running amok, even among the youth and children? So what has gone awry? Because a hundred years ago, even 80 years ago, this simply wasn’t the case.

Let’s take a little look at it from a different perspective—instead of looking at the environment around us, let’s look at it from the perspective of the individual immune system.

Did You Know?

• That even though your kids all live with you in the same home, eat the same foods, and go to the same places, you each have a very different, very individual immune system?

Everyone has their own unique immune biology, microbiome, health history, and nervous system that all work together to create a very individualized immune system.

• That even though your kids should theoretically have similar genetics, you all have small differences that influence that system in huge ways?

Beginning from conception, through birth, and through childhood, there are so many, many circumstances that influence how their particular immune systems grow and are strengthened—or weakened, as may be the case.

WERE YOU AWARE?

• That even though you all eat pretty much the same diet, how each person in your home absorbs and utilizes what is in that diet can be very, very different?
• That 70% of immune system activity is in the gut?

Different kids. Different personalities. Different immune responses. Anyone who has more than a one-person household knows what I’m talking about.

The typical and accepted answer is that the virus, the weather, the dirt, the bacteria…whatever the environmental exposure is, it is “hard to kick,” “really gets into the lungs,” “always gets strep,” and on it goes.

May I flip that scenario around?

Let’s take a look at the inside-out or the upside-down of that thought process. What if we were to think not in terms of “what” we have been exposed to, but rather in terms of “who has been exposed”?

In short, look at the microbiome or environment that the flu, virus, or other type bug has entered.

Instead of asking, “What bug is going around?” we should be asking, “What is different about the child the bug encountered?”

The goal isn’t to avoid ever encountering germs; that would be impossible. The goal is to support a child who is as resilient as possible when that exposure happens.

That resilience begins in a place many parents would never think to look when their child comes home with a runny nose, cough, or sore throat…

The GUT.

In my next article, I intend to focus specifically on the gut microbiome, what it is, and how it functions. But for right now, I just want to introduce the concept that, contrary to popular belief, it’s not about the bug. It’s about the terrain it lands in.

Imagine this—a little grass seed floating through the air. Where that little seed lands will completely determine whether it germinates, sprouts, and grows, or whether it dries up and washes away.

The fertility of the soil, the pH balance of the soil, the composition of the soil, whether the nutrients are there to support growth—so many things affect that little seed.

So it is with the gut microbiome.

When it is balanced with all the varieties of good bacteria, it is very hard for a “weed” to find space, take root, and grow, much less thrive.

But when our good bacteria biome has been wiped out by stress, sugar, poor diet, pharmaceuticals, illness, etc., that little “weed” comes in and finds a perfect home to root, grow, and multiply.

Your child’s (and your) gut health is the determining factor in your immune health. Understanding what the microbiome is, and how to get it healthy and keep it healthy, is the key to your success!

Stay tuned for Part 2, a deep dive into the microbiome, what it is, what messes it up, and what balances it, and a look at something new—the Holobiome.