Episode 54: Why gut health is so important for our children

Episode 54: Why gut health is so important for our children

Did you know that a healthy gut influences everything from your child’s mood to their immune system? I’ll walk you through why gut health is a must-focus area, especially during those early developmental years, and share practical tips to help your little ones thrive. Whether it’s choosing the right foods or encouraging simple lifestyle changes, you’ll find plenty of actionable advice in this episode.

If gut health has ever felt overwhelming, don’t worry – this is your chance to simplify and take small, meaningful steps towards supporting your child’s health.

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Links
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Highlights:

Introducton (00:00.564)
Happy New Year and Importance of Gut Health (00:29.336)
Gut Microbes and Immunity (02:53.794)
Healthy Gut Microbiome in Children (05:13.506)
Gut Microbiome's Impact on Emotional Health and Immune System (07:31.08)
Gut Microbiome and Health (09:52.43)
Gut Health Importance and Nutrition (12:07.042)
Improving Child's Gut Health (14:27.062)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

If gut health has ever felt overwhelming, don’t worry – this is your chance to simplify and take small, meaningful steps towards supporting your child’s health.

What’s Inside This Episode?

Gut Health and Immunity
Learn how a strong gut microbiome boosts your child’s immune system, keeping them healthier and stronger.
Focus, Learning, and the Brain
Discover the link between gut health and cognitive function, and how it supports focus and development.
Better Sleep, Happier Kids
Explore how gut bacteria influence sleep hormones like melatonin, helping your little ones sleep soundly.
Nutrition Tips for a Healthy Gut
Find out which fibre-rich foods and probiotics are best for maintaining a balanced gut microbiome.
One Simple Change You Can Start Today
Take away an easy, actionable tip that you can implement immediately to improve your child’s gut health.

Useful Links:

Join the waitlist for my online support program, Nourishing Kids - [[click here]]

Visit my website for free resources : https://nourishwithkarina.com/freeinfo

Check out my Healthy Kids Recipes page: Healthy Recipes for Kids.

Improve your child's gut health in 30 days, register for my 30 Days of Nutrition Tips starting January 1!

Introduction (00:00.564)
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 54, why gut health is so important for our children. Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learned all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.

Happy New Year and Importance of Gut Health (00:29.336)
Welcome back and a very happy new year to you. I hope you brought in the new year well, and I hope that you're feeling good. Now is the time to hopefully have a little bit of rest and relaxation to unwind from what was possibly a very busy December. And hopefully now you're able to take a little time for yourself just to be, just to read a book or do what makes you feel happy. So I hope that is you right now and you are able to.

takes some time out with the family, time to connect, just time to be because it's not going to be long before the year fires up again. So hopefully you can take this time for whatever you need to regenerate right now. I wanted to talk today about gut health because some of you may know that I have a daily gut health tip in January happening right now where you receive a daily tip on how to improve your child's gut health over the month of January.

And I thought this was a great, and floating my own boat here, but I thought it was a great idea because gut health is so important. And whilst I'm giving you the tips, I'm not actually explaining the why. And so I thought this was a nice opportunity to explain why gut health is so crucial for our children and ourselves as well as adults, of course, but.

why we need to focus on it, why it's a priority for our children and why we need to be doing everything that we can to improve their gut health. The saying that you are what you eat holds true, especially for our children and gut health isn't just about digestion. It is the complete centerpiece of their entire systemic health. It plays a crucial role in their immunity, their brain function, their mood.

their behavior and their overall growth. There are trillions of microorganisms in the digestive tract, in our bowel, and they play a critical role in wellbeing. We're going to talk a little more today about why it matters, the incredible benefits that we gain from having good gut health. And I'll talk about some practical ways to support gut health. start off with, why is it so important? As I said,

Gut Microbes and Immunity (02:53.794)
The gut, the gastrointestinal tract, or otherwise known as the bowel, we have a small bowel and we have a large bowel. It is home to trillions of bacteria. Now these bacteria do everything from aiding digestion, so helping us break down food and metabolize food. They produce essential vitamins. They support immunity many different ways. There's many different mechanisms for how they support immunity. Look.

70 to 80 % of the immune system resides in the gut. And here are some of the ways that gut microbes can help to support the immune system. First of all, they can help strengthen the gut wall. So your gut lining acts like a wall to keep the bad stuff out of your body. And the good bacteria help keep this wall strong and they stop harmful germs from sneaking through. So that's one mechanism by which the microbes help support our immune system.

Another way is they teach the immune system. Gut microbes train your immune system to know when to fight harmful germs and when to stay calm. So when we need to fire up and create what we know as antibodies to fight bad bacteria and when to stay calm and when not to. This balance also helps to prevent allergies and overreactions like autoimmune problems. Another way that microbes can help the immune system is that they make helpful chemicals. So

Good bacteria produce special chemicals that can calm inflammation and keep your immune system working smoothly. And these chemicals also help to repair the gut lining. Another really important way that those healthy microbes help the immune system is that the good bacteria take up space and eat the food that the harmful bacteria need to grow. They also make substances that kill the bad bacteria, keeping you healthier. So they are...

some of the key ways that good microbes help the immune system and are so crucial in keeping our immune systems strong and healthy. And that is why we really need good amounts of good bacteria, the healthy bacteria in our children's gut. And how do we get that healthy bacteria? It all comes back to food, nutrition and lifestyle. Gut health is crucial.

Healthy Gut Microbiome in Children (05:13.506)
during childhood as the microbiome is still developing, especially in that first thousand days. And by the age of three, a balance of microbes is a little more adult-like and a little bit more stable from that point. It doesn't mean that we can't change or improve the gut health from that point, but from the age of three, it becomes a little bit more stable. Up to that point, it is very much a developing microbiome.

So what are the benefits of a healthy gut microbiome in children? Okay. Let's start by talking about focus, concentration and learning because we all want our children to grow, learn and develop to their full potential, especially when they head to kindergarten, preschool, whatever it's called in whatever state you are. But we really want to make sure that our children are learning to their full potential.

And we know that a healthy gut contributes to that because the healthy gut produces these. So neurotransmitters are incredibly important for the body. There are molecules that constantly work to keep our brain functioning, managing everything from breathing to our heartbeat, to learning, to concentration. And they can also affect various psychological functions such as fear, mood, pleasure, and joy.

So neurotransmitters are really important. They're often referred to as the body's chemical messengers and neurotransmitters are produced in the gut. 95 % of the body's serotonin is produced in the gut. And I'll talk about serotonin in a little bit, but neurotransmitters are incredibly important. The impact on gut microbiome and these neurotransmitters and the impact on focus and learning for our children is real.

And they've studied and they've looked at children with a healthy microbiome score 15 % higher on cognitive tests. And so it's showing that direct impact on microbiome and better focus and learning. Because these neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, they enhance cognitive function. Okay. So that's number one is focus and learning. Number two is sleep. The gut also produces melatonin and it

Gut Microbiome's Impact on Emotional Health and Immune System (07:31.08)
influences the melatonin production, helping regulate sleep cycles. They've studied it, the Journal of Sleep Research have studied it and they've found that kids with a balanced gut microbiome sleep 20 to 25 % better. Back to that gut brain access, connecting the gut to emotional health, we know that the gut will impact mood and happiness.

As I said, 90 to 90 % of serotonin, which is one of the feel-good hormones, just like dopamine, it's produced in the gut and it reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression by 22%. So we know that when there's a healthy gut microbiome, there's more of that serotonin and dopamine being produced, especially the serotonin, which then impacts on better emotional health, better mood regulation and happier children. Moving on to the immune system.

We know that 70 to 80 % of the immune system is in the gastrointestinal tract. And when the gut microbiome is in good balance, those microbes are able to work to their full potential. As I said before, those four key areas where they boost immune health. we know that kids with balanced microbiomes are 40 % less likely to catch colds or infections. Gut health boosts immunity, reducing the risk of infections.

Number five, reducing nutrient deficiencies is another area of importance because we know that 20 % of young children don't meet their dietary iron intakes. And clinically, I see so much iron deficiency these days, and I'm still trying to get to the bottom of why. I know that dairy impacts iron absorption. And for many reasons, we are seeing a lot of iron deficiency and gut health plays a role in that. The gut microbiome influences.

how we metabolize, digest and absorb these nutrients. We know that an impaired microbiome, so when the balance is out of whack, so when we have more bad bacteria than good bacteria, what we call the dysbiosis, we know that actually impacts absorption of nutrients and can increase the risk of deficiency. A healthy gut improves the absorption of iron, zinc, calcium and vitamin D. And we know they've studied in the general of nutrition,

Gut Microbiome and Health (09:52.43)
Kids with balanced microbiomes are 30 % less likely to have nutrient deficiencies. Okay, moving on to my final tip about microbiome and health is regulated appetite and healthy growth. We know that gut hormones, so the leptin and ghrelin, again produced in the gut, help regulate hunger and fullness, promoting healthy eating patterns. We know that people who have poor eating habits or who struggle to feel full,

perhaps are overeaters, we know that they can sometimes have an imbalance of these hunger and fullness hormones, the leptin and the ghrelin. And they've studied it. They've studied the microbes and the impact on the production of these hunger and fullness hormones. The ghrelin is the hunger hormone and the leptin is the fullness hormone. So basically when you're hungry, your ghrelin hormone is higher.

And once you've had a lot to eat, then your leptin hormone increases, meaning that you are starting to feel full and you stop eating. But sometimes those hormones are out of whack and that can contribute to disordered eating and people not being able to stop eating, often leading to people who are overeaters and perhaps a little heavy. So when they've studied the gut hormones and the microbiome,

They found that a balanced gut microbiome reduces the risk of disordered eating by 25%. And this is a study in cell metabolism, which is pretty significant. And again, highlights the importance of a healthy gut microbiome to really set our children up to be lifelong healthy eaters. It's incredible that there's studies showing that improving the gut health in children

can reduce the risk of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes by up to 30 % later in life. And this was published in The Lancet. So I hope by now I've convinced you about the importance of gut health in relation to our children's overall health, growth, mood, wellbeing, learning and development. So what are some practical tips for supporting gut health? First of all, we start with food.

Gut Health Importance and Nutrition (12:07.042)
The importance of nutrition cannot be overlooked in relation to gut health. Fiber rich foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains feed the healthy bacteria. Fiber is the food for the gut microbes. It keeps them healthy and in good populations. It keeps them well fed so that they can balance out the bad bugs. When we don't provide those good microbes with fiber,

What happens is they start to get food from the gut lining of our own bodies. And that's when we start to get leaky guts. And that's when we start to increase our risk of infection and problems. avoid our gut microbes turning on our own gut lining for food, feed it with fiber rich food. And that's the way you're going to keep them in good population. Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut and miso add valuable probiotics.

In some situations, the addition of supplements such as probiotics are beneficial. And I certainly talk a lot more about that inside nourishing kids with my members. Limiting ultra processed foods, sugary snacks, sweetness, food additives, those nasty food additives that only negatively impact our children's gut health and nutrition. They harm the gut bacteria. They are something to avoid.

if you want your child to have a good gut microbiome. And again, I've got all of the information on what to avoid and what to do inside my mind support program, Nourishing Kids. Okay, so some lifestyle tips. Encourage outdoor play to expose children to diverse microbes. Playing in dirt also benefits them. Letting them interact with pets. We know that children that grow up with pets have a better gut diversity.

better balance of gut microbes and actually a reduced risk of developing food allergies. Another important thing to note, especially as children get older, is making sure that they are not too stressed or anxious because stress management can definitely impact gut health. People that are more stressed have higher cortisol levels. We know that stress hormones may also negatively impact the gut microbes. And so it's important just to keep this in mind.

Improving Child's Gut Health (14:27.062)
And if you do have a child that is more prone to being a little anxious, then trying to encourage them to have more mindful activities or playing outside, maybe a good strategy just to try to help stress management. So whilst I've talked about a lot of different ways that we can improve, I want you just to try to focus on one thing. One thing that you can do today consistently to try to improve your child's gut health. And it may be as simple as introducing fruit.

to every breakfast time, or it may be as simple as trying to add in one more vegetable into your child's dinner or into their lunch box, or it might be as simple as adding nuts to a snack plate. Try to focus on one simple thing that you can do consistently to improve your child's gut health, whether it is a dietary strategy,

Or whether it's a lifestyle strategy where you are getting your child to play outside more, getting them around animals more, getting them to play in dirt more. Just focus on one thing that you can do consistently and achieve and then gain momentum from there. Because that's the way that we will create sustained long-term health benefits and improved gut health in our children.

I hope by now I've convinced you that gut health is the absolute foundation of your child's overall wellbeing, health and development. And by focusing on supporting their gut health, you can help them to thrive in every aspect of their life from learning to mood to immunity and growth. And this is obviously going to have a big ripple effect on the whole family. And hopefully the whole family is making these positive changes because as I said,

Adults can also benefit from these dietary changes and adults can absolutely change their gut microbes as well through diet and lifestyle changes. For more information on healthy eating and gut health, you can head to my website, nourishwithKarina.com forward slash free info, where you will find my nourishing kids blog, plenty of other useful ideas, links and inspiration together with my food reviews.

and nutritious recipes for kids. And for complete support, feeding your child and improving their gut health, then please join my wait list for nourishing kids, which will open up again in February. So we'll pop the links in the show notes, the link to my free information section and also the link to join the wait list for nourishing kids. So check them out in the show notes. Have a beautiful week and I look forward to chatting with you soon. Bye for now.