Children with Chronic Illness
With childhood illnesses on the rise, it's sadly not a surprise that your child may be dealing with a chronic illness. Did you know that over 40% of children have at least one chronic health condition? Even if you feed them healthy meals and encourage them to move their body, issues can still unfortunately arise.
If symptoms are left ignored, the illness can stay with them into adulthood and can even contribute to other chronic diseases later down the road.
If you have a child with a chronic illness, the right steps must be taken to address the root cause. This way, healthy lifestyle behaviors can be learned at a young age, encouraging healthy habits that will follow them into adulthood.
Most Prevalent Pediatric Chronic Conditions
As the prevalence of chronic childhood illness continues to rise over the years, you may find your own little one struggling with one of the following pediatric chronic conditions, if not multiple.
Allergies (food allergies & environmental allergies)
Arthritis
Asthma
Autoimmune disorders
Constipation and diarrhea
Diabetes
Eczema
Gastroesophageal reflux/ heartburn
Inflammatory bowel disease/Irritable bowel syndrome
Inflammatory health conditions
Recurrent abdominal pain
Recurrent infections like sinus infections, ear infections and colds
Yeast infections
If this sounds like your child, there may be underlying issues that are contributing to those issues. Figuring out the underlying problem(s) can help you make the right changes that can address your child’s symptoms once and for all.
What Causes Chronic Illness in Kids?
There's not one single cause for chronic illnesses in children. There are numerous causes of childhood chronic illness that add to their stress bucket. Once their stress bucket is too full, it can “pour over” and results in their body not being able to function properly.
Factors and Contributing Causes of Childhood Chronic Illness:
Environmental Toxin Exposure
Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies
Poor Diet
Obesity
Stress
Underlying Infections (Like Lyme disease)
Staying Idle
Why is there an increase of childhood chronic conditions in the United States?
Even if you attempt to create a healthy environment for your children at home, there may be hidden unhealthy factors that you haven't considered. It’s challenging to avoid all these contributing stressors if you are unaware of them because they show up in our everyday environments and surroundings.
Poor Diet
To start, the standard American diet is high in processed foods and extremely low in necessary nutrients. Not to mention, kids are unfairly targeted by the marketing industry to desire artificially colored SpongeBob Squarepants and Frozen cereals, icecreams, and cookies. But what’s eye opening is that even the "healthy" kid foods are loaded with added sugars, additives, and hidden pesticide residue. Yes, even those healthy granola bars and “natural” snacks.
When children's bodies don't have the necessary nutrients, optimal bodily functioning can't be carried out- think detoxification processes, immune response, energy production, hormone regulation and production, and metabolism functions to name a few.
Toxins
While environmental toxins impact adult health, kids are even more susceptible to their dangerous effects. Toxins, which are found in food sources, childrens' clothing, plastic toys, and even on your furniture and in your home, can impact your kids' health.
These toxins damage kids' health on a cellular level, even harming mitochondria! Damaged mitochondrial function can lead to a weakened immune response and ultimately to chronic illnesses.
Obesity
Childhood obesity isn't caused by just one factor like many think. It's a combination of many. Unfortunately, it is associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases.
Factors Contributing to Childhood Obesity
Not enough physical movement
Majority of meals consist of processed foods, which are pro inflammatory
Increased stress from issues related to family, friends, school, and sports
Toxins can impact metabolic pathways, making it harder to burn fat
If your child is struggling with weight gain, natural approaches can be taken to help. Eating whole organic foods, avoiding toxic products, and picking up a hobby that involves movement can be added into daily routines.
How Exactly do these Cause Chronic Disease?
All of these stressors start to pile up in their stress bucket. As a result, their body is impacted internally and the following can occur.
Gut health is damaged
Immune system is weakened
Hormones become unbalanced
Immune response becomes overactive
Nutrients can't get absorbed
Communication between organs are hindered
Detoxification pathways can't function properly
One of these issues can exacerbate another, causing even more damage to your child's body. Chronic diseases arise when stressors aren't addressed and overburden the body. A functional medicine approach to chronic illnesses in children is to address these stressors that are causing dysfunction.
Functional Medicine Treatment for Chronic Illnesses for Children
The last thing you want to do as a parent is to give your child daily prescription medications starting at a young age. Like many parents, you want a more natural approach to making your child feel better and healthy again.
Ways To Support Your Child's Health
Feed your family organic foods as much as possible
Offer whole foods (easy fruit and veggies) as a snack instead of packaged foods
Serve a colorful plate filled with foods high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory foods
Buy non-toxic products in your home
Avoid clothes with fire retardants and buy organic clothing instead
Supplementation depending on your child’s lab results and analysis (talk to your healthcare provider before supplementing)
Encourage yoga or mindfulness activities to teach them how to handle stress at a young age
Get outside and encourage them to play in nature (you too, mom and dad!)
Avoid food additives, dyes, Aspartame and MSG derivatives
You can also check out our blog, on Detox Therapies for Chronic Diseases
When you get care from a functional medicine provider, we investigate numerous potential causes. We take a deep dive into your child's health history, use functional lab testing and analysis and genetic testing, and look into lifestyle factors and behaviors. From there, we create a personalized protocol for your child.
Dr. Jaban Moore is a functional medicine provider located in Kansas City, MO. He specializes in chronic illnesses and difficult cases. If your child is struggling with a chronic illness, please reach out. He gets to the root cause of what's inhibiting your child from recovering and healing. Make an appointment to get started. You can give the office a call at (816) 889-9801.