In the movie This is 40, there is a short clip where Paul Rudd’s character, Pete, and his wife Debbie (Leslie Mann) take their daughter to the “natural” doctor to find out why she’s getting so many ear infections. The doctor orders Debbie: “What you do is very easy and simple. No wheat, no dairy, no sugar.” Pete’s response: “Well what the [expletive] is left? Isn’t everything made out of dairy, wheat and sugar?”
The night I went into labor with my son, I was watching this very movie. It’s ironic that this scene became my life just a few years later when we learned about my son’s Lyme disease and needed to implement a strict diet to get his illness under control. In a comical way, this movie scene sums up our experience of raising a child who had every food sensitivity under the sun, and trying to figure out “what the (bleep) is left?”
Focusing on what we can eat opposed to what we can’t is an easier way to think about making small but powerful dietary changes. The variety of nourishing, nutrient-dense food absolutely exists, but it often does not live in the boxed-food aisles of our grocery stores. Before we start working together to get to the what to eat, let’s talk about the why we should focus on a nutrient dense diet.
As a Nutrition Therapy Practitioner, and as a starting point with each of my clients, addressing these 6 Foundations of Health will help me meet your family’s bio-individual needs.
Let’s get into it…
What are the 6 Foundations of Health?
Nutrient-Dense Diet
Digestion
Blood Sugar Regulation
Fatty Acids
Mineral Balance
Hydration
Eating a Nutrient Dense Diet
In many instances, making small but powerful changes is a starting point for everyone. Eating, whole, nutrient dense foods has become more of a rarity than the norm in our modern industrialized food system. Sometimes, making simple swaps can bring a powerful amount of nutrients into your diet, such as eating nuts and seeds vs. processed crackers, pasture-raised eggs vs. cage-free, fruit and real honey vs. a fruit rollup. While I realize it is not always one hundred percent possible to eat such foods, especially for children, sticking to whole foods for the majority of you or your diet will reap many benefits.
What is a whole food? A whole food is a food that is not processed or changed from its origin. Think fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, grass-fed and pasture raised meats.
The Foundation of Digestion
Have you ever heard that our gut is our second brain? Yep, you have a BellyBrain! According to the Institute of Health 60-70 million Americans suffer from digestive disease. That’s 40% of Americans. It’s hard not to think that our incredibly processed diet in America is contributing to this alarming number. Could our nation’s increase in childhood disease be hiding in the gut? Many studies are suggesting so, which is why I think this is one of the most important foundations. For good gut health, absorbing and assimilating the nutrients we eat is key for many functions in our body, especially for the brain.
Fun fact: Did you know digestion starts in the brain?
Before we even put food into our mouths, our brain is preparing our digestive system to eat. Eating in parasympathetic state is essential to our digestion. In addition, having the right balance of enzymes, stomach acid and bile production is needed to break down your food sufficiently. If your child is experiencing digestive dysfunction, these areas often need support.
Basics of Blood Sugar Regulation
When blood sugar goes up, it must come down using our PAALS (pancreas, adrenals, adipose tissue, liver, skeletal muscle). In conjunction with our PALLS, our Central Nervous System (CNS)—that is our brain and spinal cord—are essential to how our body deals with blood sugar. Think of it like our brain is the conductor, and our PAALS are the orchestra.
When we eat food, the brain tells the pancreas to release insulin which helps distribute glucose into our liver, muscles and fat tissue for energy. When we over-consume simple carbohydrates, which is very easy to do with the Standard American Diet (SAD), our insulin spikes, then overcorrects by releasing too much insulin, causing our blood sugar levels to dangerously drop. As an adult you can feel fatigued, jittery or anxious when this happens. Or in the case of a child, one might think their behavior is an issue, and you've grown perplexed that no amount of consequences have helped the cause.
Low blood sugar can be like an alarm system going off in the body. To help get that blood sugar back up, the adrenal glands release our survival hormones cortisol and epinephrine to communicate to the brain that there's an emergency. When this cycle happens over and over again, our cells can become confused and unable to respond in the way they should. If your child is angry, agitated and fatigued toward the end of each day, this may indicate a blood sugar dysfunction. Especially if your child is eating a high-carb diet, low in healthy fats, protein and fiber.
According to the CDC, diagnosed cases of type 1 and type 2 diabetes are surging among youth in the United States. From 2001 to 2017, the number of people under age 20 living with type 1 diabetes increased by 45%, and the number living with type 2 diabetes grew by 95%. Our bodies were not designed to take in the amount of sugar and processed carbs in today’s modern diet.
Proper changes can help a child's blood sugar look more like a smooth wave vs. a roller coaster speeding up and down. Sometimes simple strategies like eating your plate in a specific order can help slow the digestion of glucose. Or, having fermented condiments like vinegar in your salad dressing or pickles to go along with your desired bread (that's right, I won't stop you from eating that beloved bread or an occasional bowl of pasta). In my home, we often eat a savory breakfast, and eat our veggies first to minimize blood sugar spikes when eating a higher starch meal.
Fatty Acid Balance
Fun fact: Did you know our brains are almost 60% fat?
If you are a parent who grew up in the 80s or 90s, eating fat may be mentally difficult for you. The low-fat-fad that emerged in the 1980s has had a significant negative impact on our health. It’s no coincidence that health issues such as diabetes and chronic obesity have increased since the 1980s as a direct result of food brands using this fad to sell highly processed low-fat foods.
With learning and behavioral disorders and chronic diseases on the rise, it is essential to obtain the appropriate amount of fats. Depending on the type of fat we consume, fats can be conjugated into hormone-life substances called prostaglandins. The conversion of prostaglandins can either be inflammatory (that's too many Omega-6 fatty acids, often from seed oils) or anti-inflammatory (Omega-3s are your friend). It has been shown that children struggling with learning challenges, such as ADHD, lack enough anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids to help support the brain.
Having the proper amount and type of fatty acids can also help with our insulin resistance. See how these foundations all go together?! Consuming sufficient dietary fats is critical for our overall health.
Mineral Balance
Minerals make up about 4% of the body and are essential for every cell to function. Our bodies are not able to produce minerals so we must consume them through our food, and at times, it is necessary to increase our levels with quality supplementation.
Minerals have many important roles for optimal health. Such as maintaining proper nerve conduction, contracting and relaxing muscles, regulating tissue growth and acting as cofactors for enzyme reactions.
Out of the 103 known minerals, about 18 are necessary for every function in the body. Some of the unsung mineral heroes are:
Zinc – Zinc is crucial to produce stomach acid to help our digestion, is critical for cell growth and replication of DNA, important for the synthesis of cholesterol, fat, and proteins… and the list goes on.
Iodine – Iodine is essential for the production of thyroid hormones, the production of energy as ATP, is needed for normal growth and development and the formation of bones.
Magnesium – My favorite mineral. The benefit of magnesium is endless but to name a few, proper magnesium balance can help relax skeletal and smooth muscles and our GI tract; it is important for protein and carbohydrate metabolism, helps calm anxiety and promotes restful sleep.
Calcium – The most abundant and complex mineral element in the body. Calcium is essential for many functions in the body, but it is also the most challenging to optimize as it requires a game of cofactors which need the balance of vitamin A, C, D, E, K, B6, phosphorus and magnesium. Additionally, digestion must be working properly to account for adequate absorption.
In my experience, balancing minerals in children can make a huge impact on their physical and mental health. In adults, I've seen a significant decrease in brain fog and anxiety in particular when minerals are properly balanced.
Hydration
It's not news that hydration plays numerous important roles in the body. Hydration is usually spoken about in terms of the benefits of controlling hunger and sustaining energy. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. What's rarely pointed out is the importance of hydration to properly transport nutrients, help eliminate waste, lubricate joints, regulate body temperature, improve cell-to-cell communication and enables our digestive process to turn our food into the nutrients we need. And that’s only naming a few important rolls hydration plays in connecting all 6 foundations of health.
Many American children live in a state of chronic dehydration. Signs of chronic dehydration in both adults and children can include headaches, back or hip pain, constipation, cramps, migraines and even exercise asthma.
In addition, paying attention to the early sign of dehydration will help our body’s ability to bounce back easier. Living in our fast-paced culture can suppress our thirst signals. Even the slightest loss of water (1-2%) can cause fatigue, poor concentration, make us crave certain foods and can cause low grade anxiety. Has your child ever bugged you all day that they need a snack? It may simply be their body communicating thirst and confusing their brain for hunger.
Like all of the foundations of health, water intake is also bio-individual. Water can depend on many cofactors such as age, activity level, processed food and sugar consumption, urine color or even high elevation (shout out to my Colorado people). Using a comprehensive approach for you or your child can prevent chronic dehydration.
Let’s get started!
Now that you have learned the basics of the 6 Foundations of Health, let’s get started together! I’m looking forward to working with you and your family.
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