Food Is Not The Root Cause of Your Little One's Eczema

Food Is Not The Root Cause of Your Little One's Eczema! Bold statement? Read on!

Is your little one on an elimination diet for her eczema, beyond common triggers like gluten, dairy and eggs? Or maybe she’s on a “healthy” diet that removes whole real foods, food groups, and categories of foods?

Diet culture promises health and healing if we restrict the fuel our bodies need to grow, develop, repair, function, and thrive. This culture is so pervasive it’s even promoted by our healthcare system.

Let me ask you this, has your elimination diet or “healthy” diet solved the problem? If you’re reading this I’m guessing it hasn’t.

Here’s why. Your body runs off nutrients from foods you eat. When they are missing, imbalances develop and symptoms and health problems follow (healthy skin for example needs a lot of different nutrients that come from diet). This can be even worse in children because they are growing and developing at a quick pace and need nourishment. Diet restrictions in children also set them up for an unhealthy relationship with food in the future (fear of food, disordered eating habits and eating disorders).

Every process in the body works using nutrients, which come from foods we eat. Those nutrients are the fuel for our engines.

Your car won’t go anywhere without the right fuel… how can the body?

We are led to believe it can and this is simply not the case.

Food is not the root cause of your little one’s eczema! If you’ve removed common trigger foods and it didn’t help, and her diet is getting smaller and smaller, we’ve got to dig deeper.

We need to nourish her body and stop restricting the fuel it needs to grow, develop, repair and function so she can thrive.

We need to identify reasons she’s not getting that nourishment, there are 3 common ones:

1. They are not being included in her diet (elimination diets and “healthy” diets can be to blame).

2. Gut problems are preventing the digestion and absorption of nutrients from foods she does eat.

3. Chronic stress (yes little ones have it too) burns through nutrients and steals them from other processes in the body, like building and repairing healthy skin.

Together we can identify, and address root causes like these, and restore your little one’s health!

Babies And Children With Eczema Are Missing Certain Strains Of Gut Bacteria

Certain bacteria missing in the gut can cause food allergy (IgE immune response). This points to restoring gut health as a way to address food allergies.

Food allergies are those that can cause life threatening anaphylaxis.

Babies and children with food allergies are missing certain strains of gut bacteria. The research shows that in fact, adding those bacteria strains to mice, protected the mice against food allergies.

This means that figuring out what’s happening in the gut may help resolve food allergies without making changes to or modulating the immune system, and may resolve all food allergies at one time rather than one at a time as is the case with immune therapy.

Food allergies affect mostly younger children and are more prevalent in Western countries. They are on the rise too in developing countries.

The theory is that Western lifestyle is adversely affecting opportunities for babies to acquire a healthy gut microbiome.

This is more confirmation that health begins in the gut. It’s where 80% of your immune system is, so it makes sense that problems in your gut can cause a range of immune problems.

This also means that your symptoms and health problems (including skin rashes like eczema) are rooted in gut problems.

This also means that elimination diets, fad diets, and any diet that restricts whole real foods, food groups and categories of foods will not solve the problem, and in fact can make it worse. That’s because your body runs off nutrients from foods you eat. When they are missing imbalances develop and symptoms and health problems follow (this can be even worse in little ones).

I have yet to find a client who has truly resolved their symptoms and health problems with diet. It may work for a little while, but the problems come back and worsen over time.

This is because now the body is missing fuel it needs to grow, develop, repair, function and thrive!

Food is not the root cause. Restoring your health means restoring your gut health.

Resource

Food allergy, food sensitivity, food intolerance. What’s the difference?

Food allergy, food sensitivity, food intolerance. What’s the difference?

Food allergy is an IgE immune response, and it can cause hives, itching, rashes and flares, gut symptoms, vomiting, trouble breathing, and swelling for example, and can be life-threatening.

Food sensitivity is an IgG immune response, and it can cause gut symptoms, skin rashes and flares, brain fog, joint aches and pains (and more), and points to gut dysfunction and leaky gut. Reactions are not life-threatening.

Food intolerance can cause symptoms like an IgG reaction and also isn’t life-threatening. It results from an inability of your body to appropriate metabolize a food or foods, and it won’t show up on IgE or IgG testing.

Just because your food allergy and sensitivity testing came out clean, keep this in mind!

While I am an anti-diet advocate and help people nourish their bodies rather than restrict food after food to manage symptoms, in some cases there are potentially problematic foods that are causing your symptom flares, including you and your little one’s eczema.

Dairy is a common eczema trigger, even without IgE and IgG reactions.

Cow dairy is a culprit, and sheep and goat dairy can be too. Sometimes people that can’t tolerate cow dairy do ok with sheep or goat. This is because the proteins are a bit different, BUT some of the proteins in all these dairy sources are the same.

If you’re struggling with eczema flares and eat dairy, removing it short term (2-3 weeks) can help identify if it’s a problem or not. Short term is key!

I absolutely recommend working with a professional to help identify and address the root cause of your little one’s eczema, other skin rashes, gut problems, and to appropriately address food allergies, sensitivities and intolerances.

Remember that food allergies and sensitivities are not the root cause, and removing foods, food groups and categories of foods from the diet long term can lead to imbalances, symptoms and health problems. This is because your body runs off of nutrients from foods you eat, and when they are missing, your body lacks the fuel it needs to do all it’s supposed to do!

Restrictive, Elimination Diets, Disordered Eating Habits, and Eating Disorders

 I was removing food after food from my diet. My symptoms didn’t get better, instead they got worse…

I felt like everything I ate triggered symptoms, and my diet got smaller and smaller…

I became afraid to eat…

This developed into a long-term struggle with disordered, orthorexic eating habits.

This is part of my story.

This is a reason why I am passionate about helping others avoid falling victim to the mentality that removing foods, food groups, and categories of foods from the diet is healthy, and it will resolve symptoms and health problems (exceptions are IgE food allergies, and potentially a few other foods depending on what’s happening).

I am especially sensitive to seeing children on restrictive, or elimination diets. They desperately need nutrients from foods because they are growing and developing. When nutrients are missing, imbalances develop and symptoms and health problems follow. So does a worsening of current health problems.

If your child has skin rashes like eczema, gut problems, or food allergies and food sensitivities you’re probably very familiar with and have tried elimination diets.

Food allergies and sensitivities are not the root cause. In fact the two most common root causes I see are a lack of nutrients needed for healthy skin (which is made worse by elimination diets), and gut problems.

This is why we start with nutrition (nutrition is giving the body what it needs to grow, develop, repair, function, and thrive), and restore gut health, and why we don’t address the root cause of symptoms and health problems with restrictive, elimination diets.