Building a Healthy Child

Introduction

I am a mother and a licensed Naturopathic Doctor. I designed this program because this is what I was looking for when I had my child. When I was a child, I suffered greatly with allergies and eczema and I wanted to know what I needed to do to prevent allergies and eczema in my child as well as to promote long-term health. There was no book out there like that. This is the kind of information that I know modern parents are hungry for. I have come across many parents who want to prevent food allergies, food sensitivities, digestive discomfort and illnesses in their little ones, but are unsure what to do. As a Naturopathic Doctor, I have come to realize that the only way to truly prevent chronic disease is to build a solid foundation of health in our children.

The way that most people are told to introduce foods (ie. introducing cereals as a first solid food) is the worst way to do it and can set our children up for health issues in the future. Cereals are essentially man-made foods that are refined, processed, and striped of nutrients making it not a “real” food. We can easily prevent this by introducing “real” foods in line with how our organs mature and how our bodies are able to effectively breakdown and absorb the foods that they are given.

Four key components for us to understand is that:

1) We are born with hyperpermable digestive tracts, therefore we have to be very cautious what we put into these digestive tracts;

2) Our pancreas does not reach full maturation until approximately age 2, therefore we should not be introducing grains until age 2;

3) We have acquired our own unique foundation of microbes in our digestive tract that will affect our future health by age 3.

4) Our bodies are hard-wired to process real food, therefore we need to feed our children real, nutrient-dense foods.

As parents, we always want the best for our children and want to give them a head start in life. The one area that would have the most significant effect on performance is also the area that is the most neglected. We, as a society, greatly neglect proper nutrition for our children. We feed our children poor nutrition, introduce the wrong foods too early, put a strong emphasis on poor quality foods and then expect our children to develop into these healthy, intelligent, successful, leaders of the future.

This is a nutritional program that is guided by the development of the human body and the understanding that different organs and systems of the body develop at different times, therefore specific nutrition is needed at particular times throughout development. With this understanding of how the body works, a nutritional plan has been established to promote proper child development and this leads to preventing childhood illnesses such as allergies, asthma, eczema and chronic degenerative diseases later in life.

All of our organs begin development in-utero, they continue to develop once outside the womb, then reach full maturation at different stages of development. We need to follow the body's development and give the growing infant-toddler-child the proper nutrition at particular times to ensure proper development. We need to follow the natural laws of nature. We cannot rush through these stages or skip steps, as this will only damage the natural progression of development. It is important to follow the natural evolution of the body to get the maximum benefits of health. This is a program for true preventative medicine. If you can follow these guidelines with your children you can truly prevent chronic disease later in life.

When it comes to language development, we don’t expect our children to come out of the womb with a full vocabulary and comprehension of the language we speak. We understand that this brain development skill will take some time to evolve and there is a natural progression that occurs over an extended period of time. We need to begin to look at the development of our digestive tracts and introduction of nutrition in the same fashion. We cannot expect our children’s organs to function and have the same capabilities as fully developed and matured adult organs. Our little one’s organs do not have the same capabilities as a mature adult, their organs are still maturing and growing.

Another key component of this plan is that it takes into consideration the fact that the quality of our food is completely different than our ancestors, it is different than it was even 50 years ago. The business of agriculture and the promise of higher yields, increased food production, cheaper prices and great availability has changed our natural foods to chemical laden and genetically modified sources. The program presented in this book is a clinically significant, well researched plan that understands the toll this can take on our health and is built for raising children in the twenty-first century among these challenges.

Most experts believe that the prevalence of food allergy is rising along with a general rise in the incidence of allergic conditions. Asthma is one of the most common causes of emergency department visits in Canada. In Canada 12% of children and 8% of adults have asthma. In the US, over 50 million people, 1 in 5, suffer from known allergies, ranging from mild to severe. This program has the potential to greatly improve these staggering statistics and eliminate food allergies and associated conditions, if foods are introduced according to the natural evolution of the body.

This program will be completely different than anything you have seen before with an explanation for all those “why” questions.

This program may seem ultra cautious in comparison to anything you've seen before but if you understand the reasoning for this plan, then you will understand that this guide is set up for success and that equals a lifetime of health for your child.

This program definitely is not designed for everyone. It is for the modern parents, who understands that nutrition is central to good health, who want to make health a priority for their child and family, who want to do everything they can to build a solid foundation for the future and encourage proper child development. It takes time and effort and diligence to raise a healthy child, but it’s all worth it.

This is program based on years of research, collaborating with experts in the field and clinical experience with thousands of patients.