Are Your Kids Healthy — But Not Really?
My kids are 4, 6, and 8.
Like most moms, I spend a lot of time making sure my kids are healthy. But over the past two and half years I have realized something important.
My kids are healthy — but not really.
Actually, they are part of a new group of kids I’m calling “healthy/unhealthy.” And I think this may be the new normal. Which is deeply concerning to me.
Let me explain…
My kids are HEALTHY. Look at these super cute pictures of them here — they look healthy and happy and active and awesome because honestly, they are all of that. They are doing well in school, they are social, they are creative, they are growing like weeds.
And at the same time, my kids are UNHEALTHY. Collectively they have food sensitivities. Anxiety. Distractibility. Visual perception issues. Sensory issues. ADHD-like symptoms. And a severe speech delay called Apraxia that is going to take years of therapy to (hopefully please-please-please dear God) correct.
And this feels very normal. I know many other moms with their own version of this healthy/unhealthy story. And in fact, it turns out this IS the new normal!! According to one medical journal*, 54% of kids have a chronic illness — meaning, an illness that is “persistent and long lasting.” That is more than half of our children!
But many of these kids are still happily running around the playground. Doing well in school. Making new friends. Trying new things. Basically, being healthy.
And yet…
They have rashes. They take meds to focus. They need an inhaler. They can’t eat nuts. They’re depressed. They’re anxious. They have learning disabilities. Their brains are so disordered that they can’t stand lights, or noises, or the feeling of seams in their socks. In other words, unhealthy.
They’re both.
Healthy/unhealthy.
Let that sink in.
Gratefully, 2 years ago, I heard the story of one mom who healed her daughter by changing her diet. Our family was completely desperate so we tried it for our son and IT WORKED!!
Since then I’ve heard story upon story of other moms healing their kids from every type of issue you can imagine…eczema, autism, allergies, ADD, even multiple sclerosis. They are incredible stories. Doctor-defying stories. True stories.
And now I am on a crusade to find more of these stories. To learn more about how children overcome the odds, ditch their healthy/unhealthy status, and become truly healthy. If you are one of these stories, please leave a comment and tell me how you did it!
Can you imagine what it would be like if we could really understand how and why some of these kids get better and others do not? Can we roll back that statistic of 54% to what it used to be — 10% or less?
These anecdotal stories of kids recovering empower me to believe that we can. And now I’m on a mission to find out how.
So I can heal my family, and you can heal yours.
Learn how Documenting Hope is turning these STORIES into SCIENCE at DocumentingHope.com.
