Parents can get so busy with all the time demands that go with raising children and suddenly realise one of their children seems to be sick more often than the others. Often over-the-counter medicines seem the quickest way to deal with the problem – but lifestyle medicine can have profound effects and truly get them well.
Lifestyle Medicine Testimonial
“By the time our son Kyle* was three years old, he was already a very sick little boy. He had had recurrent coughs and even pneumonia at once stage. By the time he was in primary school he had aching joints, sleeplessness, recurring coughs and colds as well as eczema. He was missing so much school – at least a day a week – and seemed to be always at the doctor’s.
My search for a better solution led me to try Mary’s nutrition approach. In only one month, he was sleeping better and had not missed any school. By the second month, his eczema had all but disappeared and he was no longer coughing. Not only did we get a happy, energetic son for the first time in his life, but we gained the knowledge that we could control our own and our children’s health.” (Name changed to protect identity).
Poor Immunity
So many children today are sick with allergies and have more than their fair share of upper respiratory infections. Allergies lead to a search for what is causing the allergic reaction. Usually, these searches are fairly inconclusive, although removing one food or another may make some difference for a time. More often it appears that several things – a growing number of things – are triggering a reaction. As a result, the child is placed on a diet that cuts out more problem foods. It can become restrictive for the child and difficult for the parent to stay on top of.
As a nutritionist, I am less concerned about what exactly is triggering the allergy, and more concerned with why your child is reacting to the allergen in the first place. Something has happened to cause their immune system to react abnormally. I want to find out what that is or was, and find out if it is possible to fix it. Lifestyle medicine searches for the cause then adopts lifestyle changes to remedy the problem.
The immune system is designed to respond to what comes into the body – to assess it and then tamp down any over-reactive response. We should ask why the immune systems of so many kids are so sensitive.
Our bodies are designed to self-repair
Our children’s immune systems are powerful and have the ability to defend them against microbes and against chronic disease. Studying the details of how the human immune system works is truly awe-inspiring. It is a marvellous system. The problem is that a great many children are born into the world with faults in this system. Often the mother, in particular, has shown signs her entire life of a damaged immune system herself, and this ‘blueprint’, the baby has picked up.
When a child comes to see me for a consultation, I ask questions of their mother’s health and this is very often the case. Often the mother’s own mother and siblings also suffered from poor immunity. Lifestyle medicine can help to improve the whole family’s health.
Surprisingly, even this sort of generational weakness can respond fast and well to simple natural treatments. As long as there is life in the body, its default mode is to heal itself – given the right inputs.
Sometimes the ‘right inputs’ can be simple, such as <this short video> shows; the children given nutritional yeast containing beta-glucans showed great immune improvements compared with the control group.
Despite parents’ best intentions…
All parents want to do the best for their kids. But even well-meaning parents can be inflicting health risks on their children without even being aware of it.
Many parents are unaware of what things they are doing right, and what things they are doing that are actually damaging their child’s health.
Many parents are doing a lot of excellent things for their child – but perhaps not often enough. Sometimes all the good things are being watered down with the unhelpful things.
How a nutritionist can help
Here’s what a nutritionist can do for parents – we can identify the good things you are doing for your child, and point out the detrimental things. A lot of research has been done on what lifestyle medicine inputs are needed to raise a healthy child. We can help you cut through what is fluff and what is fact. Then we collaborate with you to put together a workable plan.
Your child can usually get well if you start putting in enough of the right inputs. Children’s little bodies have a vital life-force that makes them spring back much faster than adults.
Use lifestyle medicine to get well now
Just for the next few months, I am offering not one, but three sequential child consultations at a discounted price for children 12 or under. Nutrition results don’t always come overnight (although sometimes they actually do). By three visits you should be seeing marked improvements, however.
This <post> lists two books targeted at using diet and lifestyle medicine to keep kids healthy.
Get well like Kyle
Look again at Kyle’s story at the top of this post. He had a long list of confusing symptoms and was on medications and vitamin supplements for almost every single one of them. This chain of negative health events had all started when he was a tiny infant.
Continual ‘bandaid treatments’, both medical and natural, that just attempted to cover symptoms led to further unravelling of his health. Yes, all those over-the-counter vitamins and creams and even those from practitioners, if not hitting the cause, are only bandaids.
Once Kyle’s body got the right inputs to heal itself, however, his health improved in every area, in leaps and bounds. Like a chain of dominos falling his health challenges just began to fade away.
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