Experts to explain why kids' health lies with food

Whakamarama researcher and writer Jodie Bruning is excited about the three speakers coming to Tauranga to talk about children, food and health. Photo / George Novak

Getting back to the food our grandparents ate is the key to helping a range of illnesses affecting children and adults today, says a local researcher and writer.

Whakamarama's Jodie Bruning is co-ordinating an event on Friday that focuses on children, food and health.

Three international experts will be coming to Tauranga to share their findings on the relationship between the food we eat and the increasing numbers of illnesses being diagnosed in children.

Speaking at the event will be American paediatrician Dr Michelle Perro, Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt and Dr Michael Antoniou, the head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King's College London School of Medicine.

Ms Bruning said she had heard the three speakers would be in the country and had asked them to speak in Tauranga as well.

"It's really cool they're coming here, I'm really excited."

Ms Bruning said there were now a lot more sick kids and adults than there used to be.

She said 95 per cent of these illnesses related to gut health.

"Our health is related to three things - genetic tendencies, environmental triggers like what you eat, and the gut wall. Eighty per cent of our immune cells are in the gut and maintaining a healthy digestive system is essential to health.

"We have all these diseases like diabetes type one, the autism spectrum, allergies, intolerances, Crohn's disease and behavioral disorders, they all have intestinal permeability."

Ms Bruning said how people approached food was what made them healthy or unhealthy.

"We're so used to thinking that convenience foods are fine and that the food in our supermarket is great.

"We need to become a lot more critical about what it is.

"When you have kids getting sick again and again, they might have an ear infection that needs stents, constantly having days off school or regular diarrhoea, for me personally, it's about getting back to what our grandparents ate.

"It's getting back to being simple."

Ms Bruning said parents needed to stop buying food that was bad for their children .

Eating home-grown vegetables was also important because this sort of food could remedy a number of problems that were often treated by a $30 pack of pills, Ms Bruning said.