3 Ways Gut Health Impacts Children’s Health

Your kid's digestive health is key to their overall health, just like it is for you as a parent. We all know that poor gut health is the root cause of many of the diseases we face today. Maintaining a healthy digestive system is a great way to avoid childhood obesity, and cardiovascular conditions which are rampant among kids in the US today. Not only will it improve their weight and heart health, these changes will help your kids get sick less, focus better in school, and those moody outburst will be few and far between. 

Can I get a heck ya there momma? 

So, let’s cover how the health of their gut impacts these 3 things… 

Immune Function: 

The gut is one of main entry points for viruses and bugs, poor balance of gut bacteria can let the bad bugs in and they get sick more often.  In fact, 70-80% of your immune cells are in your small intestine.  

Think of your digestive system as a long cardboard tube, you bring the nutrition in through the mouth and the waste goes out the anus.  

Your gut tube’s job is to be a barrier to bring the good nutrients into the blood and keep the bad bugs and pathogens out.  But when we get leaks in the junctions we call that leaky gut.  This lets the pathogens and bugs and food particles out into the blood system, and your immune system responds and causes inflammation.

This leads to other illnesses or issues like diarrhea, skin issues, fatigue, confusion, joint pain, etc.  This is your body saying help me!  The bad gut bacteria took over and we need to stop feeding the bad gut bacteria and bring in the good bacteria.

Brain Health: 

Endless studies show the impact our gut microbiome has on our brain function, directly correlated to adhd, dyslexia, brain fog, and confusion and so much more. In fact, our gut is known as the second brain. It’s where the enteric nervous system is, and it has over 100 million nerve cells.  

That is the same amount as in your spinal cord, lower brain stem, and upper brain stem! 

In our society it can be such a huge challenge to maintain a healthy microbiome. It’s important to also forgive ourselves and realize this stuff isn’t always easy to stay on track with. Especially when we are outrageous marketing dollars, and scientists formulating foods to keep us hooked on their heavily processed food like stuff. AKA CRAP!

But You CAN make the shifts in your life and your child's life and you will have a new found energy,clarity, and vigor for life. You and your family are so worth it!

Mood and Behavioral Disorders:

Many of your neurotransmitters (little chemical messengers) are created in the gut like norepinephrine, which if you lack this neurotransmitter you can have anxiety, depression, lack of energy, adhd, lack of concentration.  

In fact, 95% of our happiness neurotransmitter, serotonin, is made in the gut!  This is our natural mood stabilizer.  

When norepinephrine and serotonin work together they can combat many of these mood problems.  

Other things to consider are reducing our sugar intake. Sugar is more addictive than cocaine and it feeds the bad gut bacteria, leaving little room for the good gut bugs to  thrive. The cool news is, it takes 3 days to decrease those craving signals and the emotional outbursts decrease. 

Pretty wild right! There’s so much to taking better care of our health through taking better care of our gut and teaching these things to our children so they can thrive all throughout life!

If this stuff fascinates you as much as it does me and you're ready to learn more, I've got a couple of ways to help you. You can join us in Apothecary Momma, where we dive deep with guest teachers helping to navigate the subject of children's health. Join us for that here. or, the deep dive into Herbs For Gut Health Course here, and  if you're wanting some more 1:1 guidance on navigating all this stuff, but don't want to take the time to learn, I can help you here.