Why are kids always sick these days?
When I was in school, there was one kid in my class who had asthma. She would need her puffer once or twice throughout the school day. No one thought much about it.
Nowadays, it seems that there is only a few kids in any given class who doesn’t have asthma or some significant allergy to something like nuts or seeds. Our children’s classrooms are potentially life-threatening to some of these kids.
1 in 10 kids has asthma. 1 in 9 has ADHD. Staggeringly, 1 in 5 has mental illness.
Some will say that we have become better at diagnosing these illnesses. Truth is, the diagnostic criteria have become quite broad, and in some instances, vague. Many are being diagnosed with ADHD based on what the child’s teacher or parent says. A list of symptoms are relayed to a medical doctor and a diagnosis is given without adequate or proper testing.
My question is what happened in the past thirty years? How can we understand this? More importantly – can we change it? Can we help our kids and society’s children from illness?
Truth: Our kids are under more stress than ever in history. Physical stress starting from birth with nearly 46% of births occurring via c-section. It continues via sports, falls, poor posture hovering over computers and tablets. Kids in general today have very poor muscle tone, strength and endurance. It is quite evident in the posture of today’s youth – anterior head syndrome.
Emotional stress comes from split families, higher demands of time, over-scheduled activities and little to no down time with creative play. Parents and organized activities are highly structured and leave little to no time for outdoor experiential play.
Biochemically – it’s a toxic, chemical storm. Additives, sweeteners, fast food, processed foods and sugary drinks are consumed in mass quantities.
The result: A systematic overload to the gastric, neuroendocrine and immune systems. Poor grades, attention, behaviors, self-esteem, fatigue, stomach problems, depression and more are the effects of a system in malfunction.
How does this happen? In physiology, just like kids on a teeter-totter, any time something goes ‘up’ in the body, something else must come down. When the body becomes stressed, the sympathetic nerve system (gas pedal) activity increases. In order to do so, the para-sympathetic (brake pedal) activity must decrease. In the immune system, there are two principal branches; the Th1 and the Th2.
The Th1 is the Fire Department. When the house (body) is on fire (immune response is needed), the Th1 system kicks into gear and puts out the fire (kills off the virus, bacteria etc). The Th2 system is like the Fire Inspector. They come in and make sure that another chance of a fire is minimized by creating proper avoidance strategies (antibodies). So when the body encounters a virus; Th1 comes in and kills it off (externalization). Then the immune system makes antibodies through the Th2 response (internalization).
Stay with me – when the body is stressed, the sympathetic system is actively engaged and so is the Th2 response. The two are intimately tied together.
As a result of the problems we are seeing in our society, science has created a whole new branch to study it. Psycho-neuro-gastro-immunology looks at how all of these systems interplay and how poor function in one leads to breakdown in the others.
Take a closer look at the word – Neurological problems can and do lead to stomach, psychology and immune problems. What science tells us is this – any time the body is in a state of stress, there is a fight-or-flight response. This sympathetic response is designed to help us in an acute state of stress. In that moment of stress, our digestion and immune function decreases and things like cortisol and adrenaline increase.
Where things go bad is when this becomes the norm and common in our children.
How do we get off this merry-go-round?
Yes – reducing stress is a great idea. But the reality is that most of the stressors aren’t going to change much. So we have to change the one thing we can change – our ability to adapt at the highest level possible.
How?
Inside you and I is a nervous system that is designed to adapt to our ever-changing environment. How well it works is dependent on how well the integrity of it is maintained. Chiropractic care removes interference to the function of the nervous system by eliminating Neuro-Structural Shifts in the alignment of the protective bones of the spine and spinal cord. Simple as that.
When you optimize the spine and spinal cord you allow the individual to function better. Chiropractic care has less to do with back pain and more to do with performance. And you must perform everyday. At home. At work. At life.
Dr. Craig’s mission is to help families THRIVE. After graduating from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Physical & Health Education, he went on to earn a Doctor of Chiropractic degree and Bachelor of Science in Anatomy from Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas, Texas. He is passionate about seeing children and families in his private practice at Synergy Chiropractic in Kanata, ON. A sought after speaker, he has been featured regularly on TSN Team 1200, CTV and Rogers TV. He is also the Chairman of the Alliance for Chiropractic of Ontario.
