Kids and Nutritional Deficiencies

Every function in the body depends on the food and water provided to it on an ongoing basis. If we don’t provide the body with proper nutrition, it begins to break down and show signs of disease. This has been typical in older adults who have developed poor diet habits or those who are food insecure. Today, however, even young children who live in households with unlimited resources and access to plenty of food are showing signs of nutritional deficiencies.

This means that their bodies are either not getting the proper nutrition they need due to the types of food they are eating, or their bodies cannot extract nutrition, even when eating healthy foods.

Common nutritional deficiencies in children include:

• Iron
• Magnesium
• Calcium
• Carnitine
• Essential fatty acids
• Antioxidants

What is contributing to these nutritional deficiencies?

The Standard American Diet

In modern industrial America, there is an abundance of food to feed the population; however, Americans are overfed and undernourished. Although food is relatively abundant in the United States, the American diet is not nutritionally sound.

Industrialization in the nineteenth century changed the food consumed. Americans (especially upper- and middle-class Americans) began to exchange home-preserved and home-grown foods that were digestively beneficial and full of nutrition (e.g., fermented vegetables and whole grains) for factory-preserved and processed foods, which eliminated all microbes through heat processing or other modalities, making them less nutritive and possibly harmful to the gastrointestinal system.

These diet changes were accelerated further in the twentieth century, with advances in food processing and manufacturing. In the past 40 to 50 years, the food chemical and additive industries have grown exponentially, and there are now thousands of additives in everyday foods, most of which have not been studied extensively in humans.

The first chronic inflammatory diseases (allergy and allergic-type diseases) appeared during the late nineteenth century, and were primarily found in upper- and middle-class Americans. Diet changes, along with newly introduced industrial toxins, may have contributed to allergies in nineteenth century Americans.

The majority of American children today eat primarily processed foods, which lack the readily absorbable micronutrients necessary for proper immune system function, such as zinc, calcium, iron, magnesium, and iodine. Additionally, the average American consumes over 140 pounds of sugar per year, compared to just 10 pounds in 1821. A diet high in sugar and simple carbohydrates and low in fiber and lactofermented foods creates a gastrointestinal environment that is ripe for overgrowth of pathogenic microbes, which can lead to gut dysbiosis.

Poor Soils

In the process of industrializing the food systems to produce enough affordable food, modern farming and food production techniques have stripped the essential nutrients out of the soil. As a result, the foods we produce are less nutrient-dense than they were even 50 years ago.

As these foods are processed in order to make them cheap and convenient packaged foods with a long shelf life, even more nutrition is stripped out of the food.

When children eat these processed, conventionally-grown foods, their bodies are not receiving enough of the vitamins and minerals their bodies need to stay healthy.

“Kid Food”

Unfortunately, Americans have developed a culture of “kid food” that lacks essential nutrition. Many people have come to believe that these foods—macaroni and cheese, processed chicken nuggets, French fries, pizza, soda, candy—are the only foods that children will eat.

It is impossible to be healthy on a diet of junk food, yet these are the foods children are eating every day—at school, restaurants, and in their own homes.

This lack of daily replenishment of essential nutrients can lead to nutritional deficiencies and systemic health problems.

The Microbiome

Gut bacteria is a critical part of a child’s nutritional team, as they produce many key nutritional vitamins or cofactors (e.g., probiotic bacteria in the gut is known to produce important B vitamins that are critical for energy production and brain, nerve, and immune cell function).

However, the excessive use of antibiotics and other medications, chlorinated water, and the consumption of genetically modified organisms have contributed to the destruction of the body’s ability to produce critical vitamins and nutrients.

Even children who are fed healthy food may be nutrient deficient due to an altered microbiome that lacks microbial helpers necessary to extract nutrients from the diet.

It is time to rethink how we feed our children. If we do not take their nutrition seriously, we will continue to see chronic childhood disease rates soar.