11 | Your child's behaviour is about their gut with Dr Elisa Song

One in 10 kids have behavior problems. One in 10 kids have been diagnosed with anxiety. One in three teenage girls has serious thoughts of suicide. One in 36 kids, and we know this is rising, have autism. And autoimmunity is rising by 3 to 9% each year. So what is happening?

And our genes have not changed in the last century. We cannot blame it all on genetics. Even if things, quote, run in the family. There's something else going on. When kids are having sensory issues, explosive behavioral concerns, there's something going on on the inside that is making it so hard for their nervous systems to be regulated.

I'm Ashley. I'm a family psychologist. And this is Raising Humanskind, the podcast that helps parents through their trickiest of seasons so that we can truly embody the leader our kids need and create the home that our families desire. In today's episode, I am joined by Dr. Elisa Song. She is a Stanford NYU UCSF trained integrative pediatrician, a leading authority in pediatric functional medicine and the children's microbiome, and mum to two thriving children. And today she's sharing with us why your child's behavior and mood might be more about their gut. Thank you so much for being here today, Elisa. I'm so excited to share this conversation with you and have you share so much of your wisdom on such an important topic. So thank you.

Oh, I'm honored to be here.

So I just wanted to start by reading something from your book, Healthy Kids, Happy Kids. There are some frightening statistics in there.

Yeah.

So one in five kids you say has eczema. One in 10 kids has asthma. One in 10 kids has ADHD. Nearly one in 10 kids have behavior problems. One in 10 kids have been diagnosed with anxiety. One in three teenage girls has serious thoughts of suicide. One in 36 kids, and we know this is rising, have autism. And autoimmunity is rising by 3 to 9% each year. So what is happening? What is going on?

Yeah, yeah, well, I, you know, I wrote my book because of this crisis in our kids health that is largely going under recognized unless you are one of the parents who has these kids right. And the conventional medical world is just not doing enough to really understand some of root causes. And you know, there are, there are many reasons why our kids have so much more chronic health concerns nowadays than even when we were growing up. But at the root, and what I write around the book is really their, their gut microbiomes, our kids gut microbiomes have changed over the past 100 years and we see this rapid rise in all sorts of mental health, immune, metabolic health concerns, hormonal health problems in kids and our genes have not change in the last century. Right. We cannot blame it all on genetics. Even if things, quote, run in the family. There's something else going on. And that something at the heart really lies in how our children's gut microbiomes are interfacing and interacting with their developing immune systems and their developing brains.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so let me read a story from your, your book because I know that parents who are listening are parents of kids like Aiden. So Aiden came to me when he was six and a half years old. He was struggling with sensory issues. He was struggling with social anxiety. He was struggling with explosive anger and behavioral problems. He was struggling with school, home and friends. And he didn't feel comfortable in his own skin. He couldn't stand to be touched. If you literally rubbed in the wrong way, he would lose it. He hated strong smells, loud sounds like blenders and vacuums freaked him out. And hardest for mum, he couldn't stand hugs and kisses. He was eating the standard American diet, variations of wheat and dairy and packaged snacks. And then you go on to share some things you did. And then you say, did Ayden's diet miraculously change overnight from high fat, high sugar, western diet to a plant based, fiber rich, gut friendly diet? No. And did we have a long journey ahead of us? Yep. But I'll never forget when mum called me two weeks later in tears, happy tears for the first time she could remember in a long while. Aidan hadn't rubbed her kiss off and he even asked for a hug. That is such a powerful story. So why is it that Aiden needed support with his physical health and his microbiome and his diet rather than what we would conventionally think is he needs to go to a psychologist or he needed, he needs someone like me. Why did he need this physical support to change these symptoms that, that this parent was seeing?

Yeah. Well, when kids are having sensory issues, explosive behavioral concerns, there's something going on on the inside that is making it so hard for their nervous systems to be regulated. And the reason I start with the gut microbiome is because your gut is the, the heart of how your brain interacts with the world. This gut brain connection is largely dictated by what's going on in our gut. And you know, some people may have heard that the gut is actually called, or some people call our gut the second brain. I would say our gut is really our first brain because in this two way communication highway between the gut and the brain, via something called the vagus nerve. 80 to 90% of the communication actually occurs from the gut to our brain. And the chemicals that our brain, that our gut makes, that many of us consider brain chemicals, are actually gut chemicals like serotonin, which helps us stay calm and relaxed and manage anxiety and helps us to fall asleep. In fact, 80 to 90% of all of our serotonin is made by our gut microbiome. But here's the thing. It's, it's only made by our gut microbiome if we have the right balance of bacteria, good bacteria in our gut, and if we have the right kind of microbiome that supports healthy neurotransmitter production. And once we have that in place, so many of our kids, what we call mental health symptoms are now revealed as gut brain symptoms, right? And so much of that can go away. And Aiden's story is not unique. I mean, I just want to shout this out from the rooftops because that, you know, I still remember the day that mom wrote me that, that note and just the chills and I mean I was in tears. Just could you imagine your child just rubbing off, you know, your kiss and just not for the first time, Right. And I have another story that I didn't write about in my book because it's more recent, but this is a 10 year old girl who was diagnosed with ADHD, OCD, ODD. She had some PTSD, she had dyslexia and she was aggressive and violent towards her baby sister and everyone was walking on eggshells. And you. She was miserable. She would say, I don't want to be this way. And yet she couldn't help it, right? And so she was miserable, her family was miserable and she had tried multiple psychiatric medications. They all led to horrible side effects. The worst actually of which was she stopped eating. She just had no appetite and she lost so much weight that she actually ended up needing to see an endocrinologist because now she had really stopped. And so they were worried that she wouldn't reach her full potential adult height. And so they came to me desperate. You know, they tried the ADD meds, they tried the, the antipsychotic medications, they tried the anti anxiety medications. And so the first thing we did was look at her gut. And I sat there with this 10 year old and mom and explained why am I looking at the gut, right? And I explained to her that she has trillions of tiny, microscopic friends in her tummy. We want them to be our friends because if we take care of Them, they will actually make all the brain chemicals that help us feel more calm in our bodies and our brains. Right. But I can't look and know if she has all of these good guys without doing a stool test, a microbiome test. Right. Or looking at her gut and trying to heal her gut. So sure enough, we did the stool test and found that she had a high level of abnormal bacteria that created this really inflammatory compound. It's called lps. Started on a gut healing regiment. Worked on her diet. Now, mind you, she came in eating maybe five or six foods, right. So I wasn't going to expect her to, you know, eat a huge fiber filled, you know, salad every night. But we talked about it and I told her why. And she actually started being interested in maybe having a little broccoli floret on her plate. Right. It's a start. We have to start somewhere. Right. But just by starting to heal her gut within one month, not even one month, I'm going to say two, three weeks, mom wrote me a letter saying that her child was more calm in her body. She was smiling more, you know, she wasn't throwing things. She was, she was feeling better in her own body and was actually, you know, not pushing back on some of the supplements, was trying to increase her diet a little bit. And here's, here's the, the sentence that really got me. Mom said that she felt like she was getting her daughter back and that. And, and for the first time in, you know, years, she and her daughter and her dad and her sister felt like there was some hope. Right. And that wouldn't have happened if we didn't start with her gut first.

Yeah, yeah. And I think every single parent listening is going, that's my kid. My kid is like this little girl. My kid is like Aiden. That's why they're here, that's why they're listening. And it's so important to understand this piece of this physical healing and addressing the gut because it has such a profound impact. And I love that you said, you know, she didn't want to be this way. She. Sometimes it can be really tricky when kids are persistently struggling with aggression, not to fall into thinking that they're choosing this, they want this. Like, no child wants to behave like that. No child wants to hurt their baby sister. So what talk to me about, how do you get parents over the line who are worried, because this is something that they've shared a lot with me before, is if I restrict certain foods or I try and build up certain foods that they're worried about their child's relationship with food going forward. Is that something that you hear from parents?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I hear from parents, I hear from practitioners, and I see it, right. I see it, you know, happening in some kids if we're not framing things in the right way. Yeah, right. Because we don't want kids to ever feel restricted or didn't, you know, feel like they're being deprived. Right. So much of, you know, how we're thinking about changing diet and lifestyle, if we can focus on, frame it in a way that the child understands this is to help you feel so good in your body and your brain. It is not about restriction. It is about finding the right diet and lifestyle for you. Right. And when we're trying to shift some of the foods that are more inflammatory, I explain what it's doing to their bodies and their brains. And, you know, what if we try removing this food and replacing it, right? So we're not eliminating, we're replacing it with the food to really try to be detectives, to identify, well, what foods are going to really nourish your brain, you know, nourish your body and nourish your microbiome. And so it's really trying to identify, you know, what's ideal for that child. And when we think about foods, I mean, food is so emotional, right? I mean, for all of us, I mean, there's just, you know, we start talking about food and they're immediately, you know, we can. We have different ideas around what food means for us even from growing up, right. And restriction and deprivation can come in and we can have friends or family or grandparents saying, well, how can you deprive them? You know, just let them be kids. Right? That is also another refrain that I get. And when we understand that food has changed dramatically in the past decades, that what we're often feeding our kids really is not real food, and that the studies show that when we move towards a more processed diet, the brain does change in our kids. And when we move more towards a real whole food site, the brain changes again back for the better. Right. We. We want to look at this as an opportunity. And if I find, let's say we find that, you know, for Aidan, artificial dyes were really poison for his brain, you know, that was one of the first things we removed. And that immediately, within days of removing, you know, the, the red Gatorade and the artificial colored skin skittles and, and find not just replacing, but finding swaps, right. We had, you know, the, the electrolyte Powder for him that he could mix in and look. Look like his friends, right? But it didn't have all the. All the junk in it. We found the, you know, gummy bears that were colored with fruits instead of artificial dyes. I mean, within just a few days. Dramatic difference in his expression. Explosive behavior at night, right? And so, you know, so what we talk about then is, wow, what an amazing opportunity, right? This is so amazing to identify what foods are not great for you so that you know how to be empowered for the rest of your life. So it's really, you know, it's. It's this. This mindset shift towards focusing on what serves us instead of, you know, focusing on what we can't have that is really, really important because I don't want kids to ever feel deprived. And I. And also a lot of times it comes down to first doing the work as parents, right? To really, really understand that we are not depriving. We are giving our child's brain the best opportunity to be as nourished as possible. Now, on the other hand, you know, when there are foods that we do need to at least temporarily remove from the diet, we also want to make sure that we don necessarily couch foods as all bad or all good. Because I don't want kids to develop fear around food, right? That we want them to be empowered with knowing, look, it is what we really do for the most part. If we can nourish, it's just like a garden, right? If we can nourish our bodies and our brains with the healthiest foods, the healthiest nutrients for. For the soil that helps us grow, then every once in a while, if there's something that comes your way that kind of, you know, shifts the soil to a less healthy state, we can still bounce back. It's all about building that resilience. Now, if your child is, though, in the throes of really, really having a very dysregulated nervous system, right? And having a very challenging time, that is the time to buckle down and give yourself and your child an opportunity to really know. Can something as simple as diet make a profound change? Now, I say simple, but simple isn't always easy, right? But, you know, there's another. I have another child who, you know, really, she just came and I just saw her yesterday, and she just. It really hit home to me how much so many people don't recognize the power that food has on our nervous system. And she always was a more, you know, sensitive child, but as she got older and now she's in in early middle school, and her. Her anxieties, her separation fears were getting higher and higher and higher. And, you know, she was having a hard time sleeping because of all the what ifs. And then she had developed some OCD rituals around needing to, you know, have mom do certain things to reassure her that, you know, that. That the world wasn't going to end, that mom was gon come back, that, you know, that everyone was going to wake up in the morning. And so all of these fears. And so I did check her lab work, and we actually found that she had positive celiac antibodies. Right. So for her. Now, I do find many kids with gluten sensitivities that don't have celiac disease. But she had no gut symptoms.

Interesting.

None. I mean, her poops look perfect. No tummy ache, no heartburn, no bloating. I would never. No conventional doctor would have ever thought to check for celiac markers, because what do we think of with celiac? We think of diarrhea, weight loss, malabsorption, right? She didn't have any of that. And so when we saw this, I said, you know what? Sometimes celiac disease and gluten sensitivity manifests only. Only with neuropsychiatric symptoms. So it is worth a try because she did not like feeling this anxious and she wanted to go to school and have fun with her friends, but holding her back, she also loved her gluten. So it took a little while, right, you know, to find swaps. And mom. I mean, our moms are such heroes, you know, her mom, you know, went through many iterations of gluten free pancakes and homemade breads and waffles and found, you know, found recipes that were delicious, right, that her daughter loved. Right? And they made it work. And so I saw her, this was now maybe about six months after eliminating gluten. And the daughter had had some accidental gluten, but was very careful about not having gluten because she recognized how much better she felt. She was able to go to school, her worries were still there because she was a child that tended towards anxious feelings, but it was not debilitating anxiety. So. And she could have anxious moments and moments, noticed that she bounced back so much more quickly. She had her anxious moments and then was able to access the breathing tools or the visualizations or the tools that. That she had in there. But when her brain was so, you know, foggy with gluten, she couldn't access them. Right? And the interesting thing is, when she had that accidental gluten, she knew immediately because Then she did have GI symptoms and her headaches came back. She forgot that she was having daily headaches. Right. She forgot that she was having trouble sleeping and her body hurt all the time and, and those went away, you know, once she went off of gluten. Right. And, and it was noticing symptoms that.

Had just become her norm.

That's right.

Level of frustration and her level like imagine how your body feels when you're not even aware of it, but it's so uncomfortable.

That's right. Because oftentimes we don't realize what symptoms we've just learned to live with until they're gone and then come back and we realize, oh my gosh, I was living like that all the time. Right. And so as you said, sometimes for our kids with behavioral issues, you know, we're often, you know, as in a conventional model, oh, it's a psychiatric issue. They need more therapy, they need more behavioral, you know, supports. And yes, that, that can be a part of it for sure. But if we're not recognizing that there, that there are real physiologic manifest that if children are really not comfortable in their bodies, there's no way we can ask their brains to be regulated.

Absolutely not. I just want to interrupt this important episode to share with you that if you are a member of the Kind Collective, I have an extra bonus for you inside of your app right now. I have shared my own favorite gut healing recipes and the systems that I use to keep feeding my children healing, nutrient dense foods without the overwhelm. Because I remember when I started on this journey it is so easy to feel like it's all too hard. But we've got you head to Masterclasses and then Gut Health. And if you're not a member and you have a child struggling with aggression, anxiety or challenging behaviour and you're looking for more support, head to holisticfamilypsychologist.com membership that's holistic family psychologist. And I'm so glad you brought that up because this is something that comes up a lot in my work is the parents will say but their bowel movements are fine. And that we've really been trained to kind of see that gut health as only looking at the bowel movements and missing as you say, that sometimes these OCD symptoms, sometimes this anxiety could actually be managed and reduced in such a way where those tools can then be used if we can heal at that level of the gut. So it's such a powerful thing for parents to hear because that's the biggest block that comes my way when I say, you know, maybe this is part of what we're going to do. Maybe this needs to be part of the journey. And they'll say, no, no, but the bowel movements are fine. So I'm glad that you shared that story.

Yes, yes. And I, I will say I, you know, when I look at, you know, doing gut healing, a gut reset, I talk, you know, for parents who don't have a more fun trained or integrative pediatrician near them. I outline in my book my gut reset plan, so that even if you don't have access to stool testing or even if you don't have access to a functional pediatrician, you can still do a lot of the work on your own. Right. And just do some detective work and get some plans in place. But I will say, you know, in the. I'm going to guess the thousands of poops that I've looked at and the stool samples I've sent off, the vast majority of kids don't have stool problems, Right? They don't have outright constipation or diarrhea. Maybe some of them have mild tummy aches, but they're not severe. Right. And so that's, that is where it's so important to recognize that brain symptoms are gut symptoms, skin symptoms are gut symptoms, joint symptoms, sleep symptoms, PMS or pmdd, those hormonal symptoms, they are biological gut symptoms. I mean, all of those symptoms really stem from gut imbalance. And if we can, if we can identify that and optimize your child's gut microbiome, it's sort of like the domino effect. You see so many other things falling into place simply by starting with that one core piece.

And that was actually going to be my next question was because so many of the families I always ask on my background forms is, tell me about your child's gut. Tell me about your child's physical health. And a lot of them will say, yeah, chronic constipation in the toddler years or eczema as a baby. Or they'll name some things that happened for the child in the first few years of life and they'll, oh, but that's resolved now. But now they've got that anxiety now. The child's still aggressive at seven. They're still having meltdowns. So is, was it resolved? Or what would you say? How do we help them understand that link in that situation?

Yes, well, those early symptoms are clues that there's an imbalance in the gut and your child's. How your child's Gut microbiome develops in those key first, we call them the first thousand days of life, or the first two and a half to three years of age really does inform how their immune system starts to develop and how their brain starts to develop. Now, our gut microbiome continues to be malleable, and so it's never too late to optimize your child's gut microbiome, right? So I say that because I'm going to, I'm going to share some studies about what can occur if disruption to the gut microbiome happens early on in life. And some parents will listen and say, oh, my gosh, that was my kid. Right? You cannot go back in time and change what happened when your babies were. When your children were babies, Right? But what we can do is then have the knowledge that even if your child doesn't have gut symptoms, oh, we need to look at the gut. So this is, I take this as very empowering because now you have another piece of the puzzle for what got your child to where they are today. You know, it's just, it's a part of their story, right? But we know, for instance, that babies who are born by C section or babies who require formula feeding their gut microbiome start to shape in a different way. Different kinds of bacteria start to colonize their gut microbiome early on in life. And we know that these babies that have a different trajectory, that it can impact their developing immune system. You know, 80% of your immune system lies in your gut. And so when baby's gut microbiomes are imbalanced, it can affect how babies immune systems experience the world. If we think about our gut, we are one long hollow tube, right? You know, from our mouth all the way down, you know, to where the poop comes out. And that hollow tube on the inside is actually facing the outside of our world, right? Everything that we encounter, from the food we eat to the viruses and bacteria and environmental toxins that we experience, they all pass through our mouth and through our gut microbiome. And our gut microbiome then tells our immune system how to respond to those, Right? So that when our gut microbiome isn't healthy, especially in those early days, then it can start to see foods as not foods, but something to attack. And we can see a rise in food allergies, right? We can also see a rise in eczema with that immune imbalance. And also our gut. We've already talked about the gut brain connection. We know that early gut microbiome disruption can also increase the risk for later mental health concerns in childhood and adulthood. So it could be, you know, a C section birth or maybe antibiotics in those first two years of life. And that set this ball in motion to then increase the risk of what you might be seeing now. So even if their gut microbes or their poops look terrific, now we know, okay, if there ever was a history of antibiotics, if there ever was a history of maybe reflux medications, if your baby was really colicky and was diagnosed with reflux as an infant, that could have shifted their microbiome enough that increase the risk for different allergic diseases or different neuropsychological or behavioral concerns. Now, again, you can't go back in time and change that. But. But now we can say, all right, there may. There may have been some disruption early on. So now let's see how we can repair and restore that.

Yeah. And it's so important, isn't it? So I love the way you say that. To look at it as clues. Clues to where we need to act now and what we need to do now from an empowered place, not focusing on what's happened in the past, but what can we shift and what can we focus on today? Which we will get to. But I have a couple more questions first. So the other thing that seems to be really common with the kids that I work with who are struggling with lots of behavior issues, lots of aggression and anxiety, is mouth breathing. So can you share anything about what's happening? Why are so many kids breathing through their mouth, and what does that impact and what's caused by that?

Yeah, well, I mean, there definitely are, you know, thoughts that just how our diet has changed. Right. Has. Has shifted how our palates form. Right. Even with lip and tongue ties that, you know, can have a lot to do with what we're eating and whether or not we're getting enough of our. What's called methylation supports. Right. But I do see a lot of mouth breathing, and some of that is from enlarged tonsils and enlarged adenoids. And so then we have to think, okay, what's going on here? And oftentimes your kids are. Their immune systems are not happy with some of the foods that they're eating or even some of the environmental exposures they're having. Maybe they actually have outright environmental, you know, seasonal respiratory allergies. So we always have to think if there's mouth breathing in conjunction with enlarged tonsils, enlarged adenoids, what's going on in their. Their oral microbiome and also in their immune system that. That these are getting Enlarged and blocking their airways. Right. And causing them to breathe through their mouth and sleep with their mouth wide open. Right. Structurally, with softer foods, not chewing as much, not getting the right, you know, not eating, you know, organ meats like we did historically. Right. Getting enough of those fat soluble vitamins. There has been a shift also in our palate, if anyone knows the work of Weston A. Price, you know, and really shifting how our palate and our teeth are formed, it just leads to smaller jaws malalignment and then requires us to mouth breathe. So that can be part of it too. And so even as a mom, if you are pregnant, really focusing on, you know, getting a diet that's really rich and varied, including organ meats, can be a great way, you know, to get all of your nutrients.

Okay, and what would you say for parents who are no longer pregnant but they have the 7 year old who is, for example, mouth breathing. What's. Because I know that surgery tends to be a quick, quickly recommended. Is there a, is there something we can do before that? Are there other things that people can try?

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say, you know, if, if there's. That sometimes surgery to get your tonsils and adenoids removed can actually be a huge game changer. If we're not finding, you know, some of the other reasons why these tonsils are so enlarged or why these adenoids are so enlarged. And the other time that it's really been very beneficial. And I don't know if you want to touch on this, but there is a condition called pandas where, you know, kids can develop these, these, these sudden or sometimes subacute, but still this new onset of anxiety, OCD tics, you know, behavioral concerns, aggression that, that is associated with sometimes strep infections, in which case it's called pandas, and sometimes other infections or other toxins like mold. And if it's pandas and kids have had recurrent, you know, strep infections over and over again and, and that's really causing a flare in their behavioral concerns and neuropsychiatric symptoms, then sometimes REM can really be one of the, the, the, the best things we can do to remove that source of constant infection. That being said, if your child does not have pandas, then the first thing I really like to do is figure out what's going on. Oftentimes there are food sensitivities. So you know, sometimes that includes food sensitivity, blood testing. But the biggest culprits are going to be dairy and gluten. I 100% believe it is worth Doing a trial off of gluten and dairy to really, really give your child's IM them a chance to say, hey, that's what I'm reacting to. And to shrink their tonsils, right? Because if it's gluten and. Or dairy that are causing the tonsils and the adenos to be so inflamed, well, your tonsils and your adenos are, your. Are part of your immune system, right? So if. And these are just the visible parts, right? This is that canary in the coal mine saying, hey, my immune system's not that happy. So if you've identified the culprit, then, wow, you've just identified a culprit that is irritating your child's immune system overall. So that's awesome, right? You know, let's figure that out. And so I do think that, that it's worth a trial to see some kids actually have undiagnosed environmental allergies. So then going to your allergist and seeing, can you get testing for pollen allergies or, or dust mites or maybe it's, you know, your. Your family cat, which is horrible if that is right. But if we identify that, then we know, okay, there. Now that's another reason why your child's immune system is unhappy. And for some kids, these, these quote, you know, environmental allergies, they don't show up as itchy eyes or runny nose or sore or, you know, scratchy throat. It might just show up as enlarged tonsils. Right. I actually have had kids where this one, kiddo, I'm thinking of seasonally, his behaviors would really act up. And so, and no convent, classic allergy symptoms. And we did some allergy testing. He was highly allergic to oak trees. Of course, his yard was filled with oak trees. And every springtime, he would have huge behavioral flares. So when we recognize these oak pollen allergies and could preempt that with, you know, some. Some environmental controls, like keeping his windows closed on high pollen count days, using an air purifier, a little, you know, calendula ointment or vaseline under the nose so it didn't trap the pollen in, you know, pollen control measures. We added some natural antihistamines like Qu. Quercetin, and. And his seasonal behavioral flares didn't happen. I mean, it was, you know, but we wouldn't have known that if we didn't investigate that, because who would think that histamine could trigger behavioral problems, Right? But histamine can cause all sorts of issues besides just the classic allergy symptoms.

Yeah, and thanks, I really appreciate that nuance because yes, in some situations that surgery is going to be really helpful. And in some situations we need to get curious about the environment and what else might be be going on and to really just stay curious. And as I'm hearing you talk, it feels like just be open to any possibility because you've got so many of these stories where there's so many different things that can actually be at the root cause. And, and we really just need to be open and curious. This. So what about. Because so many of the families that I work with will say, my child already eats a whole foods diet. My child already eats really well. So what, what about the families that are listening to this going, yeah, okay, well, that is my kid, my kid is a lot like Aiden or my kid, you know, does have huge behavior issues. But we're already on a whole foods diet. What would you say to them?

So if you're already on a whole foods diet, then there's a couple of things I would look to see. Even within the whole foods diet, is there enough of a variety that your child is getting all of the, you know, macro and micronutrients that they need? Very often for our kids, I mean, kids in general, but especially for our kids with behavioral concerns, they, they need more zinc, magnesium, omega 3 fatty acids from, from fatty fish, right? And so if they're not getting a wide variety of foods that contain those, it may be that it's just more focusing on, you know, increasing the foods that are rich in zinc or rich in magnesium, or making sure you're getting in fatty fish once or twice a week. Right? So, so you could have a very healthful diet that just doesn't have enough of the nutrients that, that are needed. Right? So that's one issue that, that could be a potential. It could be that it's, it's food pairing, you know, for lack of a better word. Right? So for instance, if a child is having, you know, whole, you know, let's say whole grain pancakes in the morning and maybe a little fruit and heading off to school, let's say they're having mangoes with their whole grain pancakes and maybe a little bit of organic maple syrup, right? Well, that is a whole foods diet, but that may be a spiking their blood sugar up, right? And so maybe if you just added some, you know, almond butter, you know, to the pancake, or a handful of toasted pecans over the mangoes, right? Or maybe some full fat yogurt, so, so that blood sugar doesn't spike as much because some kids, they're eating, you know, again, they're eating healthy, but it's, they're, they go on the sugar roller coaster that's affecting what, what's going on there. Um, the other thing could be that perhaps they don't have the right microbes in their gut to take advantage of this whole foods diet. Because our gut microbes are beneficial gut microbes. They need fiber, Right. And they need polyphenols, a color in our foods to, to eat and then create the neurotransmitters to produce B vitamins and produce short chain fatty acids that benefit us. So it may be that, yes, we're eating all of these healthful whole foods, but we don't have the right bugs to take advantage of that to produce the, the, the byproducts that, that we benefit from. So there could be a variety of different reasons also. It could be that perhaps something that your child is eating even though it's, it's, you know, really, quote, healthy, they're reacting to. Right. So I've seen that as well, where even on, you know, a really balanced, amazing diet, kids, maybe they're sensitive to eggs right now. They're getting, you know, free rage. Maybe they have chickens in their yard and they're, you know, eating all the right things, but they just need to take a little break from that. Right. I've had some, some kids react to, to citrus, right. And so, so it, it might be that it's just kind of doing a little bit of digging and finding out, you know, what it could be.

And I think, yeah, I loved reading your book with that in mind. My kids have a fairly, I would say, a good diet. However, there's still so much to learn, right? There's so many because you pick up one ball and then you drop the other. And as I was reading through, I was surprised how much fibre a child needs. Meats.

Yeah.

And I was surprised how hard it. Because I think about, my children eat a lot of plant foods. They, you know, they eat a big salad at night with dinner. There's all these things that you would say is, you know, a good thing. And yet still when I added up all those numbers, I thought, oh, okay, a lot of fiber is hard to get. So, yeah.

And you know, and I will say fiber is, is one of the hard. It is one of the hardest things to really get enough of. If we're not having vegetables at every meal or thinking about how can we get legumes or nuts and seeds at every meal. Right. And so in many families, for many families, vegetables are mostly a dinner thing. Right. And so just thinking, how can we shift? I mean, if your child is having eggs in the morning, you know, chop up some spinach, you know, add in some, you know, I mean, any vegetables you have, seasonings count too. But really trying to get in more of that fiber you want to try to get, you know, reach into your pantry and see do I have some on, do I have some bell peppers in the fridge, some carrots, whatever is left over, just chop it up and make into an omelet. Right. And just trying to get in that, you know, get in more, more plants at every meal. I, I will say the other place that I think a lot of parents are not necessarily thinking of is how the sugar can sneak in even in a whole foods diet. And that's very important because, you know, many of us think, oh, well, I'm not giving my kids that much sugar. I'm not doing that candy and I'm not doing, you know, we don't do a lot of cakes and cookies, right. Maybe that's on the weekends. Bacon. And we have that as a treat. But sugar is so sneaky and it sneaks in in so many places. Especially if like many like me. Right. I, I buy canned spaghetti sauce. I know it's not too hard to make marinara sauce, but, but I still, you know, on a, on a day where it's kind of rushed. Yes. I, we buy our own spaghetti. We buy spaghetti sauce. Right. We buy ketchup. We buy, you know, salad dressing. Right. So even though many of these things absolutely you could make on your own, however, many of us are busy and we want to buy organic packaged foods that are made with whole foods ingredients. But we're not looking at the sugar content. Right. We're looking at the ingredients to make sure there's nothing artificial. Right. We're making sure it's organic. We're, you know, we're just, we're looking at all that, but we're not necessarily looking at the grams of added sugar and you know, for not, not, not, you know, really looking, that can really add up very, very quickly because sugar can be found in many salad dressings and barbecue sauces and ketchups and, you know, marinara sauces. So we just have to look. And to be honest, you know, in so many gluten free products too. Right. You know, many of you say the.

Same with fruit because I, I know especially where I live, mango, like delicious fruit is so plentiful and that My second child was much more sensitive to that. So I'm curious, is that something that can be where that sugar can spike or is that different?

So that's a great question. Because sugar has more fiber in it, right? You know, if you think about eating an apple with the peel that has a lot more fiber than a, you know, apple juice that's squeezed out and no, no fiber remains, Right. But you know, fruit will still. And there are certain fruits that spike your blood sugar more than other fruits, unfortunately. All those amazing tropical fruits like mango and watermelon and pineapple and you know, those, those do tend to spike your blood sugar more. Right. So even then it's not, I want kids to have fruit, but I want them to be heavier on the vegetables. So when we think of, you know, our standard, you know, food pyramid in America, it lumps fruits and vegetables in the same section. And I really think that it should be. Most vegetables and fruits we treat. Like in many cultures, fruit is a dessert. Right. And so really treating fruit as, you know, I, I enjoy my fruit. We'll have it, you know, we can even have it at our meals. But that's still going to be a part of our, our fruits and vegetables leaning heavier on the vegetables. And what we also know is when I say fruit is often a dessert, well, what does that mean? Fruit is eaten at the end of the meal once we've had our protein and our healthy fat fats. Right. And so that we have healthy fats and protein in there to slow down how quickly our blood sugar spikes after eating fruits. Right? So if your kids come home after school and they reach for that bowl of grapes and they eat the whole bunch of grapes, right? And you notice afterwards, wow, they're, you know, really all over the place. And then they're crashing and they're really, you know, angry, right? Try. Then coming home, giving them maybe a little bit of, you know, like a small almond butter sandwich and then having the fruit. It makes a world of difference to have your, your fruit with, you know, some healthy fats or, or protein.

Yeah. My four year old was watching me read your book and I was looking at the fiber section and he's like, well, I could just have apple. He's going through, I could have apples and mango's like, that's right. He's adding it up.

Okay, so, because I love that, I love that. It's just that. And, and how much do I love that? He's also like thinking, okay, where can I get this fiber from within the.

He went and Got some sesame. No sunflower seeds. Afterwards, he's, yeah, I'll have some sunflower seeds. I was like, great, perfect, perfect. It was a fun conversation that. That came from reading your book on the couch. All right. But I have one last question that I know comes up, and then I'll get you to finish off with. With a couple of just things to take away that parents can feel, feel they can go and do today. So the last thing that I wanted you to quickly, if we've got time to share about, is picky eating and sensory issues. Can you share? Because I know parents are also thinking, well, great, we're talking about high fiber. We're talking about eating a variety of different colors. But my child only eats three things, and there's a lot of sensory issues, so how can this be related to the gut? And how do we even start?

Well, so I love talking about picky eating and sensory issues because one of the things that people don't realize is that the composition of microbes in your gut can actually determine what foods you want to eat, right? It is fascinating because our gut microbes, I mean, whether they're beneficial or not, they feed on certain food foods, right? So your beneficial bacteria, if you have a lot of good microbes, they want fiber, right? That's what they feed on. And so literally, remember, 80% of the communication between your gut and your brain happens from your gut to your brain. So they. They can send signals up to our brain to change our food preferences. If we have abnormal organisms like, let's say, yeast, which many of our kids have, you know, an overgrowth of yeast or candida. Well, what does yeast feed on? If anyone's ever baked bread, how do you activate your yeast? Right? You need some warm water and sugar, right? If you've ever brewed your own kombucha or, you know, some. Some parents may like brewing their own beer, you need sugar, right? And so, and so if we have a lot of yeast in our gut, that it can literally start sending signals to our brain, you know, feed me, feed me. I want sugar. So if your kid is the kind of kid who craves sugar, sneaking sugar, you know, wants, you know, crackers and pastas and fruit and all of that, maybe it's yeast, right? But here's another tip off for that, because kombucha beer, what happens, we have to be careful if we add too much sugar, because yeast will ferment that into alcohol, right? And so the yeast in our gut, that takes the sugar that we eat, whether it's from rice and pasta, or whether it's from an actual sweet treat and creates these alcohol byproducts. They're called acetaldehydes, and they can be really inflammatory. But these alcohol byproducts can then slip in through our gut and go straight to your brain. And many parents will have these. These experiences where as I. As I describe it, I'll see a lot of parents saying, oh, my gosh, that's my kid. Right? Because we've all, as adults, adults, by this point, I would say not all maybe, but most of us have seen what happens when people get a little tipsy. Right. On too much alcohol. They might get really weepy and sad and clingy. They might get really angry and belligerent. They might get really spacey and kind of goofy, you know, laughing all the time. Right. Or they may get really almost, you know, paranoid. Right? And so. So we can have all these different ways that alcohol can affect our brain. Well, guess what? That same thing is happening if your child has a lot of yeast and they're eating something that. That has a higher sugar content. So if you notice after your child has something, now pay attention. If they're going through all the different variations of how you can be drunk, maybe they start angry, and then maybe they start weepy, and then maybe they start laughing, right? That, to me, is a big tip off. Wow. There's some yeast in there that we want to, you know, take care of. Right? So that's one thing. Now the other thing that, that happens with, with picky eating, though, you know, of course, with picky eating, you know, if it's related to whether or not it's related to, you know, abnormal gut microbes, of course, then we're. We're not eating as wide a variety. And oftentimes that means becoming a higher risk for nutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies. Right? And, you know, picky eating and sensory issues are highly tied to our zinc levels. And zinc is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in children and in adults. But zinc can change how we process sound, so sounds can become amplified. So if you have a kiddo who can't see, like, you have to use the blender or vacuum when they're out of the house or they won't go into a public toilet because, you know, it's too loud. Right. That very often is a zinc issue. Zinc also changes how. How we taste to food and can change the taste of food. So, you know, there are kids who, when they don't have enough zinc that is the underlying reason for their picky eating, right? Or if you have kids with, you know, they can't stand the tags on their shirts. Or my son, I can always tell when he needs more zinc because clothes start to bug him. They're. They're too, you know, stretched out. Or his. His. He went through a phase when he was in preschool where it would take us almost, I don't know, 30, 40 minutes to get out the door because he would be screaming that his shoes were not the right tight. Like, I had to crank his shoelaces almost till I literally was worried that his shoelaces would break. Right? Sometimes I got it tight enough. Sometimes it would just be tears on both our parts and just have to grab him and, sorry, we have to leave, right? And. And I remember my husband, after this was going on for a while, he looked at me, he's like, well, what would you tell your patient? Right? Because I just had mom brain, and I'm just, like, you know, in this, like, you know, traumatized state where I just wanted to be comfortable and, you know, and, like, not have it be such an ordeal every morning. And so when he said that, it's like the last life light, the switch, you know, clicked. And I thought, oh, my gosh. I would say, try some zinc. Right? And so. And so I. I started giving him some zinc supplements, and two days later, he was fine. Right? And so. And I had one mom who had listened to me on a podcast talking about picky eating and zinc, and her kid was eating maybe five foods. And. And so she thought, well, okay, what the heck? I mean, she didn't, you know, her. Her. She didn't have a doctor to order zinc levels, so she started, you know, on a safe level of Z her daughter. And she wrote me and said after. In just one month, her daughter had already doubled the different kinds of foods she was eating. So she went from 5 to 10, which still, you know, if you're. If you're, you know, you know, as a mom, you're like, I want my kids to eat 50 different foods. Well, if they're starting a five, we'll take 10.

We're happy.

Yes, yes. So I would say just remember the zinc trick. And also remember, your gut microbes often determine what. What your food preferences. So always look at the gut, too.

I think that's so important when I first heard that, that those little gut microbes are deciding what you want to eat. It's so important for parents to understand because it's bigger than what we often Hear around some of the, some of the suggestions around picky eating. So I'm glad that we touched on that. Now, just to wrap up, obviously, I highly recommend everybody going out and reading. Healthy kids, happy kids. I loved it. I loved reading it on the couch, as I said, with my children looking over, wondering what was happen, happening, what we were talking about. And it, it definitely sparked a whole set of wonderful conversations in our family. But what are a couple of things that parents who are listening, parents who are going, oh, my goodness, my kid is like Aiden. And I'm just already feeling overwhelmed. I'm already exhausted. The idea of, you know, I'm already battling every single day. How do I now think about overhauling our diet? What, what are some, some words of comfort or encouragement that you could leave families with as we wrap up today?

Yeah, Yeah. I would say don't do an overhaul. Just don't. Right. You start with one thing, okay? Because those, that one thing becomes the next thing that you can do and the next thing, and then after a while, it's a marathon, not a race. If it takes you six months to get there, that, that's fine. Right. I will say, you know, optimizing your diet, it's always a work in progress, right? And so you just, you just find the one thing that is relatively easy to do. Right? So, you know, if it's, you know, if your child is eating, I don't know, let's say the Gatorade. I don't know. Do you have Gatorade in Australia? Yeah.

Yeah. It comes over. We get it all.

So if they're, if they're, if they really want Gatorade. Right. And that's just something that's, that you've been, you know, you've said, okay, you know, they're not drinking. I'm just going to do the Gatorade. Well, see if you can find a swap for that. Right. You know, here we have now, you know, in the States, we have this, this drink, it's called Liquid Death, but it's a very cool drink. It's in a very cool container and it doesn't have any artificial dyes, no artificial sweeteners. So for son, that was, it was an acceptable swap. He would do that, right? So. So that's what we did, right?

Yeah.

Or if it's. I'm just trying to think of another thing, like, you know, ice cream, right? Some ice cream is good ice cream. It has cream, a little sugar, maybe a lot of sugar. But, you know, we'll, we'll pick One battle at a time. Sugar and some strawberries in it. Right. Other strawberry ice cream has artificial dyes. It has, has emulsifiers like mono and diglycerides, which should not be an ice cream. Right. So maybe swap that or maybe it's just if your kids like ketchup, maybe it's just swapping to the zero sugar ketchup. Right. You just, just one thing. Just pick one thing that you can swap out. Right. Or maybe if your child loves oatmeal, you know, or porridge in the morning, right. It's you know, grinding up pumpkin seeds in the, in your coffee bean grinder and just see, know saying kid, let's try little, little sprinkle on your oatmeal this morning. Right. And then, and it's just adding that, you know, that pumpkin seeds are amazing for zinc and, and for, you know, healthy fats and protein. So, so I would say don't, don't let there be overwhelm. You start with one thing. And when it comes to your gut microbiome, there are so many different things that will help even apart from diet. Right. So in the book I talk about the five things for microbiome magic. And so of course course food is one of them. But it's also how we move our bodies and how we hydrate, how we sleep, how we engage our vagus nerve. So there's many different ways that we can support our microbiome. So if food right now is the most stressful part, then maybe think about going for a walk in nature, you know, three times a week. Right. Planning it out like making it a calendar day state so that it doesn't fall to the wayside. Right. Because that will support your microbiome. So there's lots of different ways.

Yeah. So start small, don't get overwhelmed and just make one little change that, that heads in the right direction.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. This has been such a powerful and important conversation and thank you Elisa for the work that you do in the world. It's much fun.

Thank you for having me me.

You're so welcome.