Jessica Donovan is a Naturopath who specialises in Childrens’ Health through her Natural Super Kids business. Today we’re discussing How to Manage Kids’ Immune Health Naturally.
About Jess:
Jess is the founder of Natural Super Kids, and she helps busy mums raise their super kids with healthy food and natural medicine.
As a Naturopath Jess has an intricate understanding of how the body works and natural therapies that can help support optimum health in our children. (many of which are already in your kitchen )
In her clinical work, Jess has helped hundreds of parents to transform their children’s health. Her results have been from minor issues like getting picky kids to eat a more varied diet to helping clients to navigate chronic issues like cystic fibrosis and everything in between from eczema to tummy issues.
Connect with Jess:
Website:Â www.naturalsuperkids.com
Facebook: @naturalsuperkids
Instagram: @naturalsuperkids
Andrew: This is “Wellness by Designs” and I’m your host Andrew Whitfield-Cook. Jessica Donovan is a naturopath who specializes in children’s health through her business Natural Super Kids. And today, we’re discussing how to manage children’s immune systems, which I get is a massive topic. But we’re gonna try and give you some clinical pearls today. Welcome to “Wellness by Designs” Jess, how are you?
Jessica: I’m well, thanks. Thanks for having me, excited to be chatting.
Andrew: Absolute pleasure, an absolute pleasure. But I guess to start, we need to talk about foundations. Where do we start with kids health? And I know this is… I’m warning people, this is a huge topic but where do you start, from a practical level?
Jessica: Yeah, I really love starting with the foundational pieces, because I feel like we can, you know, get almost there, or even all the way there with a lot of kids. So when it comes to kids immune systems, the first thing I’m always thinking about is their diet and nutrition. So, you know, like…I think we’re all aware that kids are eating so much more processed, refined, nutrient-depleted foods, that doesn’t have the goodness, the nutrition that they need. And also that is loaded with the nasties, the sugar and the additives and, you know, all of those sorts of things.
So that is often sort of where I start talking to parents about their kids diet, you know, what’s going into their bodies on a daily basis. And from there, you know, it often becomes really clear that some of those really important immune nutrients are lacking, or the intake of them is lacking things like zinc, and iron, vitamin A, vitamin D, of course, which is more dependent on sort of lifestyle factors, as we know, vitamin C. So that’s where I’m often sort of starting to talk to parents. And sugar, sugar is such a huge one, we know that sugar depletes the function of neutrophils. And of course, neutrophils are part of that innate immunity that kids rely on much more heavily than we do as adults, because they haven’t built up that adaptive side of their immune system. So we know that sugar sort of slows down the function of those neutrophils. So you know, that’s a big topic as well.
Andrew: Now, that’s a very interesting point you make because their innate immune system is really driving things, their adaptive immune system hasn’t got the memory yet.
Jessica: Exactly.
Andrew: So how can we help that along? Like, you know, that, I guess, the archetypical poster child, he would be colostrum from mother’s milk upon breastfeeding, that’s in infancy. But what about with kids? How can we help their innate immune system to handle things, apart from just reducing sugar simply?
Jessica: Yeah, well, it’s powering up the immune cells with nutrients as well, with nutrition, with vitamin C, with zinc. That’s super important. And the other side of it is, you know, making sure that they’re being exposed to microbes through their environment and their lifestyle, you know, the old hygiene hypothesis that tells us that that lack of exposure to microbes early on in life does affect a child’s immune system. So we want them to be outside and, you know, getting that all-important sun exposure for the vitamin D, of course, but also that, you know, just that naturally from being in an outdoor environment and playing outside, they’re getting that exposure to different microbes and things which is, of course, building up their gut microbiome and also really important for immune development. So I think that’s a big factor in kids’ immunity as well.
Andrew: Do you know…just along that line, do you think maybe one of the points here might be to get the kids out in nature rather than going to the local park where there’s copper logs with, you know, chromium, copper, arsenic, CCA, you know, there’s toxicants in the local “park” that the council has provided us, rather than doing that, get them out into nature, get them to the beach, get them to soil, rather than dirt.
Jessica: Yes, yes, this is such a good point as well. Because like you said, there’s, you know, there’s so many chemicals and other problems in those, you know, the parks and the playgrounds. So if we can have a space in our own backyard that we know is, you know, low in chemicals that can be really great. But yeah, taking…you know, going as a family to visit national parks and going camping… I mean, we’re so lucky here in Australia going to, you know, conservation parks and just letting kids play. Yeah, it’s super important.
Andrew: Okay. So, with regards to nutrients and nutrient depletion, if you look at even the Australian Bureau of Statistics, you’ve got…worrying is one word, disgusting is another. You know, there’s a huge amount of kids who are depleted in many nutrients. And this is one of my beefs with dieticians, when they just say, “Oh, just eat a healthy lifestyle.” Well, that’s obvious we’re not because they’re rampant. So things like even iron, for instance, in kids, let’s start with that one. What do you do? How do you help parents to navigate these simple nutrients in food?
Jessica: Yeah. So I think, you know, often it comes down to just parents being busy and not paying enough attention to, you know, what’s going into their kids’ diet. What’s kind of, you know, normal these days is very different than what was normal, you know, 10, 20 years ago. Those sometimes treat foods that used to be, you know, maybe once or twice a week, there’s now two packets of those in every kid’s lunchbox, you know, every single day.
So it’s educating parents, which is something that I’m really passionate about, you know, making parents aware, but also inspiring them with, you know, ideas for nutrient-rich recipes that don’t take a whole lot of time to make is really important. And then, I guess the other side of is the fussy eating and picky eating and iron’s a really good example and zinc’s another one, of nutrients that tend to be lacking in kids that are fussy, and you know, prefer those white beige soft foods that don’t have very much nutrition. So that whole area of fussy eating needs to be addressed as well, like on a family level. But I think as practitioners, we can offer sort of support to parents when they’re in that trap of their kids only eating, you know, those white beige foods.
Andrew: And along that lines, you’ve got extremely powerful marketing, beguiling parents into thinking that they’re healthy as well. You know, they’re high in fibre, they’ve got added nutrients. What I find quizzical is why do these nutrients, you know, why does bread need added vitamins?
Jessica: Exactly.
Andrew: It’s an oxymoron. It’s crazy. How do you navigate that?
Jessica: Yeah. Again, it’s like, yeah, it’s educating parents, you know, to turn the packets around and have a look at the ingredient list, don’t get sucked into those claims at the front that are there to suck us in, you know, they’re there to suck those busy moms that have got two kids hanging off the trolley, they just wanna get out of the supermarket as quickly as they can. So they grab those foods that say, you know, no added sugar or high in fibre without turning the packet around. Yeah, so that’s really huge. And again, you know, educating parents to shop at Farmer’s markets or, you know, get onto the organic box co-op or if they are going to the supermarket for their weekly shopping to try and focus on the perimeters of the supermarket where the fresher food is and limit the amount of food that they’re buying from the aisles.
Andrew: You know, it’s really interesting. Your comment about picky eaters, like I remember our kids going through this period. One of my children had an extremely bad diet and I remember Lee and I, my wife, and I arguing about, “If we don’t buy the food, it’s not there for him to eat.” But the comment was made by him to Lee about, “Thank you for not overcontrolling my life.” This son now has the most brilliant diet, he cares about what he eats. And yet, we did virtually nothing. I’m not saying we sort of enabled him but we didn’t harangue him a lot. We let him go through his phase and he enlightened himself indeed. So how much do you have to teach the parents, and how much do you have to teach the kids about the long-term ramifications of high sugar diets or poor diets, that sort of thing?
Jessica: Yeah, such a good question. Because you know, all kids are motivated by different things. But the research shows that saying, “Come on, you need to eat this because it’s healthy” doesn’t work for kids. So I really like the approach of the division of responsibility. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of that. But it takes the pressure off parents and it empowers kids. So as parents, we’re responsible for what food we’re providing to the child. And when they’re eating, you know, their eating times and their eating environment, where they’re eating. But the child, no matter what age they are, is responsible for, how much of that they eat, and what parts of it they eat.
So yeah, that’s the approach that I really like to take. And it does take the pressure off parents, as I said, and it empowers kids, you know. Because a lot of fussy eating comes down to control and behaviour as well. And so, nearly all kids will go through a fussy eating sort of stage, but how long that kind of goes on for, I’ve found from the families that I’ve talked to, is often dependent on how we respond to it as adults. And of course, we want our kids to eat the healthy nutrient-rich foods, particularly, you know, if we know a lot about nutrition, we can feel that kind of desperation that they eat their veggies or, you know, that they eat their meat because of the iron and the zinc. But we know that sort of pressure doesn’t help.
So that division of responsibility approach is really great. And the other thing is just that ongoing exposure. So many parents just stopped putting something on their plate, because their kids have said they don’t like it. But again, what we know from the research is that repeated exposure, sometimes, you know, dozens and dozens of times, that helps a child to become more comfortable with the food. And the more comfortable they are, the more likely they will be to eat it eventually.
Andrew: Yeah. You know, one of the things that I’m always curious of is, if you look culturally, you don’t find Italian, seaside villages with their kids, and their kids going, “No, I don’t like fish.” And, “No, I don’t like…” But are they given fish. They’re given fish all the time.
Jessica: Yeah, because that’s all they’ve got to eat.
Andrew: That’s right, that’s all they’ve got to eat. So there is this choice, but there’s also a normalcy. And I think this is really interesting, is how we’ve made so many bad things normal. But I wanted to ask you a question about… You’ve got a lovely bright, engaging face, like your eyes light up, is this one of your contrived tricks to engage with children? Because sometimes kids are going through that really shy phase of their life where they don’t like strangers, they’re clingy to mom, particularly. And in other times, they’re a little bit more comfortable with others. How do you practically engage? What hints and tips can you give us so that we can become experts like you are?
Jessica: Yeah, well, such a good question. And thank you for the compliment. I guess I don’t know, I think maybe naturally…like I don’t even really know what the answer to that is. And a lot of the work that I do now is more sort of broader education to parents through podcasts and through you know, online, like Instagram lives and webinars and things like that. So now, at this part of my career, I don’t have a huge amount of contact actually with the kids. But yeah, I have always been able to connect fairly well with kids. I’ll always, you know… I’ll always make sure that I am you know, making eye contact with them talking directly to them asking them questions, but also saying, “It’s okay, you know, if you don’t want to answer,” obviously, this is age-dependent. You know, mums here to help.
But I’ve always sort of made them part of the whole process when I’m consulting with kids as opposed to just kind of asking mum for all the answers. And yeah, just generally being sort of fairly friendly. And in clinic, which…like I said, I don’t really do a lot of clinic work anymore. You know, I’ve always got something for the kids to, you know…whether it’s a box of cars, or some Lego, or something, which helps. Because some kids, you know…particularly if kids are on the spectrum, talking directly to them doesn’t really work. So you know, it’s good if they can be engaged in something, they tend to be a bit more responsive.
Andrew: Yeah, sure. So let’s move on, recurrent infections. How do you handle this? This is a quagmire, I know. We’re gonna get into a lot of food topics but let’s start, with recurrent infections. Where do you start? What foods do you start with? And indeed, can we go into a few treatments that you might find helpful?
Jessica: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, as soon as you say recurrent infections, the one that comes to my mind that we, you know, experience a lot of at Natural Super Kids are the ear infections, yes. So of course, you still wanna work on those foundations, you know, the nutrient intake, the lifestyle, you know, making sure that their diet is good. But more often than not, you know, it’s a bit more complex than that. So the research shows that recurrent ear infections, I think it’s like…it’s close to 80% of kids with recurrent ear infections have a food allergy, or food intolerance, or a food sensitivity, of some sort.
So there’s that, you know, that involved as well. And I find, more often than not, you know, ear infections are a great example and other recurrent infections can fall into this category as well. But there’s often a bit of an issue with dairy. It’s not always dairy but I would say the vast majority of the time, there’s an issue with dairy. And so obviously, you’re looking back at the case history and asking about, you know, what was happening when the child was a baby? And, you know, you can pick up on digestive symptoms or, you know, things like that, that can point us down the road of yeah, potentially dairy is an issue.
So yeah, I’m always looking at, you know, intolerances and sensitivities when it comes to recurrent infections. Look, again, I like to obviously…you know, uncovering what that might be is important. And I’m a big fan of the elimination trial diet. So, I would start off with advising like at least a six-week period of cutting either dairy out completely or if that feels too big for the family, I might just say, “Well, let’s just cut out the A1 casein” because in some cases, in a fair few cases, actually, that is enough to reduce that inflammatory load and they’ll be okay with the A2 casein dairy products. So the goats’ products, the sheeps’ products, the 100%, Jersey milk and, of course, now there’s the A2 brand which makes it much easier for families to, you know, access… Not all families are keen to try goat’s milk or sheep’s milk like us naturopaths might be.
Andrew: Well, that was really funny, actually, because I remember my other son, we put him on goat’s milk, he did not do well on cow’s milk at all. And the swap to goat’s milk was amazing, particularly as an infant, with incredible change in his health. Can I ask the question, though, about when is a “snotty-nosed kid…?” I’m doing here for anybody who’s listening, the quotation marks, when is a snotty nose kid normal? And when is it an indication that there’s something going wrong with say, you know, sinuses or antigen-presenting something like that?
Jessica: Yeah, well, I would say it’s all in, you know, how long has the snort been an issue? Mainly, you know, does it sort of come and go with the infections? Or is it more sort of long-standing? And, you know, there are a lot of those kids that seem to be congested all the time, their noses are always running. You know, a lot of kids will have that issue where it’s worse…if it’s worse in the morning and it gets better as the day goes on I’m always thinking of dust mite allergy. That’s a real classic kind of one because obviously, they thrive in bedding and warm, humid environments, carpets, and soft toys. So yeah, that’s a really common sort of issue that I see in kids that tend to always sort of have that congestion and respiratory issues. So if it’s coming and going with infections, I would say it’s less, you know, less of a long-term problem or something kind of more serious going on.
Andrew: Yeah, sure. And of course, you can use in casings when, if you’re worried about dust mites, there’s bedding in casings, pillowing casings. I remember the recommendations about, you know, getting rid of soft toys they’re just a minefield for dust mites. And it’s actually the dust mite feces, which is more allergenic. If you wanted to give that a little bit of a push to a little bit of an emphasis for parents…
Jessica: Motivation. Yeah.
Andrew: …for parents to take note. Yeah, motivation. Thank you. And what else was it? I mean, oh, sorry, the thing that we did, we ripped up all the carpet in our house, gone. We’ve tiled it, it’s done, thankfully.
Jessica: Yeah, it can make such a big difference.
Andrew: You go.
Jessica: Yeah, and I was just gonna say even the clothes…you know, kids these days have so many clothes in their room. And, you know, mums will put all the winter clothes just loose under the bed through the summer. And of course, that is a…you know, a big dust collector, even mattresses. Simply just…it sounds a bit strange, it’s that extra thing for mums to do. But just vacuuming the mattress every couple of weeks and yeah, using those dust mite protectors, that getting rid of as much of the soft kind of furniture and toys as possible, at least out of their sleeping room. You know, you can have all those things may be in a different room. But yeah, hot washing and putting them out in the sun. Yeah, these things make a big difference.
Andrew: Yes, thank you, damp dusting was the other one. I remember damp dusting rather than dry dusting. Thank you. There was one point that I forgot to make, and it was the biggest remise if you like of my career was that I never bought an auto scope. And yet, being a parent, it was the piece of equipment that I missed the most. If I will encourage any practitioner out there who has got a significant proportion of their patients as children, I would say invest in a good auto scope. And it tells you volumes of information right there and then.
Jess, can we move on? So recurrent infections. So when you see things like, you know, the sinuses, the recurrent ears, we’ve gone through, you know, the bedding and things like that but what about treatments here? Like are there any…do you say, poster child? Are there any favourite herbs and nutrients here that you find particularly useful?
Jessica: Yeah, great question. Well, one of the other things that is a big consideration in recurrent infections is vitamin D deficiency. So vitamin D is almost always something that I would prescribe, in supplement form, for kids with recurrent issues. And look, I try and keep things fairly simple with kids, focus mainly on nutrition. So things like vitamin D, and zinc, and vitamin A, and vitamin C, are, you know, always in the mix. And then, yeah, depending on sort of what area of the body is affected. You know, elderberry is great for kids, and fairly well tolerated. Of course, the thing with kids is we need to get them to take it.
So liquid…I will often go for the formulas, like the powdered kids formulas tend to kind of work fairly well. Look, I love the medicinal mushrooms, the Reishi, the Coriolus, the Cordyceps, they work really well for boosting immunity generally, but also, you know, they’ve got those great antiviral properties, and they have that immune regulating effect as well.
So as I said, when there are those food sensitivities or allergies present, which there often are with these recurrent infections, you’ve got that immune-regulating effect as well as that sort of immune surveillance or immune-boosting effect. So yeah, they’re often a favourite with these recurrent infections. And like garlic oil, topically, into the ear, as long as you can confirm that the eardrum hasn’t burst can work really well as well.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I remember at one stage, mullein oil, well, is one of the other things and it was one of my sort of preferred things. There was only one place you could get it from, and it was so hard to procure. But anyway, the other thing I was gonna ask is about… I’ve just gone off the track. Fever, forgive me. So a lot of these kids and like the thing that keeps the parents up at night is the child is inconsolable with fever. How do you manage fever?
Jessica: It’s such a good question. You know, I’ve written some blogs and done some podcasts on fever, because I think that there’s a lot of awareness that needs to be put out there when it comes to parents. Because as soon as our kids are born, you know, we feel like we’re not doing a good job at parenting unless we’ve got a bottle of paracetamol in the house. And it’s sort of, you know, all the ads and everything targeted at parents that, you know, it’s caring for your kids to bring down that fever and make sure they don’t have any pain ever.
But I think what we really need to get out there in terms of information to parents is that fever has a really positive role in immunity, you know, it ramps up our immune defences, and it slows down the replication of microbes, you know, whatever that microbe might be, whether it’s a virus. So if we’re jumping straight to, you know, fever medication, like paracetamol for kids, as soon as their temperature starts to increase, we can actually really prolong the illnesses. And so, you know, obviously, fever is something we do need to be careful of, and I always like to educate parents to take a child-led approach.
So rather than focusing on the exact numbers of when we need to do something about the fever, it’s more, you know, how is that child, that particular child, and in that particular moment? So if a fever will make a child tired, which is great for them as well, because then they get the rest that they need, but they should always be fairly responsive. It’s when they start to become, you know, unresponsive or confused, or they’re hard to wake, or they’re listless, that’s when, you know, we definitely need to take some action on bringing that fever down. But generally, I think parents jump to bringing down a fever way too quickly.
Andrew: I’m so with you there and guilty as charged earlier. And I remember a really fantastic lesson. This was actually given to me by a doctor a house call doctor, I remember. And he said, “Stop doing the tepid sponging of the kid and things like that.” He said, “Get your child into a hot bath. Like, as hot as they can tolerate it. Not boiling, please be safe, but a warm, warm bath, very warm bath,” and here was my son, playing happily after feeling miserable. And then he was just splashing away, playing happily. And then the fever resolved. It was really interesting that it was the warmth that helped the fever resolve.
Jessica: That’s really interesting one. I’ve got an 11-year-old daughter and she’s a classic one of, you know, you let the fever go… And she gets quite hot but, you know, I’m always making sure that she’s responsive and okay, and then the next day, she’ll be absolutely fine. Like she just gets over infections so quickly. Obviously, having a naturopath as a mum with all the remedies ready to go is helpful. But it’s that leaving that fever and letting her get hot and letting the body do its thing, I think, that you know, it has a big part to play in that.
Andrew: Yeah, I was also gonna ask you, with regards to medicinal mushrooms… Now we’ve got vitamin C it tastes beautiful. We’ve got orange flavours and things like that. Vitamin D, they’re in drops, big deal, done. Get them out in the sunlight, midday please, only for a short amount of time. Safe sun, not long, not sunburn. But with regards to medicinal mushrooms, they taste like mushrooms. So how do you hide them? Do you tend to sort of put them in foods, in soups, or mashed potato maybe?
Jessica: Yeah, good question. I think they’ve come a long way. So I do… There’s a particular like product that I use that’s in powdered form and it doesn’t taste as… anywhere near as terrible as the liquid forms of the medicinal mushrooms. And I find that in a little bit of juice, yeah, it works really quite well. So you know, all kids are different. Some kids can be really tricky to get supplements into. But yeah, I find like try it in water first, otherwise a bit of juice.
The other little trick that I have with kids’ supplements is like mineral water, sparkling mineral water can work really well, because it just changes the taste. And the other thing is cold water. Some kids will, you know, flat out refuse supplements in room temperature water, but as soon as it’s cold, they prefer it. And then, there’s all kinds of other tricks that we use, like you can freeze certain supplements into little ice cubes or into ice blocks, or you can make them into gelatin…like put a little bit into gelatin gummies, obviously, into smoothies, that sort of thing. Yeah, and some kids don’t like to drink their supplements. So mixing it in with food can be a good option as well.
Andrew: Gotcha. Another scourge, mainly for parents, not the child is the nighttime cough. How do you handle the nighttime cough? Obviously, there’s a differentiation here. It could be anything from, you know, asthma, to something more severe. Or it could be just this post-viral tickle. How do you differentiate? How do you treat?
Jessica: Oh, it can be a really tricky, kind of…especially those coughs that go on for a really long time. And, you know, kids need help during the night, if it’s us, then we can, you know, cough a little bit and go back to sleep, but kids will call out for us. So I find, you know, in some cases, having like a few pillows under the child so kind of lifting them up a little bit can really help. Thyme, I love thyme, and I’ve got a little sort of homemade remedy with fresh thyme and you just sort of seep that in boiling water and add some manuka honey. I find that really great for…
Andrew: Honey, yes.
Jessica: …symptomatic relief. But obviously, also it’s, you know, addressing the infection and giving the respiratory system some extra support.
Andrew: We’re not going to advertise brands at all, but I do find that with manuka honey, sometimes the more medicinally strong ones can be extremely expensive. But I did find a…how do I say this without advertising? A supermarket with a very fast flow-through that their manuka honey is extremely good value and extremely strong in the UMF rating. Just saying, you’ll have to sort that one out. So another one and this is more of…it could be sinister. That is nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, how do you manage it? When do you refer on, you know, how do you manage the safety aspect of this versus the practical treatment aspects that we can employ?
Jessica: Yeah, good question. I’m pretty cautious with those kinds of symptoms, particularly if they’re chronic and they’ve been going for a little while. Look, I feel like the most important thing with these sorts of symptoms is just to keep the child hydrated. That would be my sort of number one tip for parents to just make…don’t worry about the lack of appetite so much. And I’m talking, you know, for three or four days, anything past that, I would definitely be referring and making sure that they go to their GP. But the most important thing is to keep them hydrated, to let them rest. And yeah, as I said, if vomiting, diarrhea, goes on for more than even probably 48 hours, I would recommend that they go to their GP and get checked out. And then post those kinds of symptoms if it has just been a short-term… So sort of tummy bug, I’d always just make sure that I’m sort of replenishing with good bacteria, so probiotic supplements.
Andrew: Yeah. Do you ever use colostrum? You know, we’re all in the vein of avoiding dairy. But I’ve got to say, colostrum, to me, is one of the most underemployed magic supplements that we can ever use.
Jessica: Yeah, I agree. Colostrum is great. And there is that tricky part where a lot of kids, particularly kids that are, you know, getting help from a naturopath, there could be some, you know, dairy issues. But, yeah, colostrum is, you know, amazing, and I agree, it’s underutilized.
Andrew: Absolutely. Like I’ve got to say, I can still remember this poor woman with an inconsolable baby with severe, severe nappy rash to the point that the child’s anus was bleeding. You know, there were fissures from excoriation. And this poor woman felt so guilty because she tried to do the right thing by using cloth nappies, things like that. I know we’re talking about infancy and not kids, but I think it just points out how magic colostrum is. And I said, “Look, you can give this stuff to your child as well as breastfeeding. And make up a little paste and just smooth it onto the excoriated part.” And of course, I think it was three days, this woman came in and thought I was the best thing since sliced avocado because we’re paleo and [inaudible 00:35:35]. But to me, it just paints out the power of that sort of supplement. And I wish more naturopaths would employ this, but it’s not milk, it’s colostrum. There’s gonna be different proteins in there. So anyway.
Jessica: There’s very little kind of that typical dairy protein. So yeah, even kids that are sensitive to dairy can often tolerate colostrum. So good for immunity, it’s so good for the gut. And yeah, when there’s that, you know, that really awful nappy rash or recurrent nappy rash, I’m always thinking about the gut. So I’m not surprised that the colostrum helped.
Andrew: Yeah. Jess where can we find out more? You’ve spoken about blogs and things like that. Can you direct us to those blogs so that we can find out more?
Jessica: Yeah, definitely. So you can find everything is all in one easy place. So my website is naturalsuperkids.com. And yeah, I’ve really sort of, I guess, progressed in my career, in my business, where I’m, yeah, doing more of the kind of big picture educating. So I now record a podcast every week. So it’s, you know, it’s aimed at parents to educate them about their kids’ health and nutrition. So we cover a variety of topics on the podcast, and you can get to that via the Natural Super Kids website.
And then, we’ve got blogs and, you know, recordings of Facebook Lives. And the main offering for us at Natural Super Kids is our membership, the Natural Super Kids Club, where we support parents to really boost the health and nutrition of their kids. So we provide healthy recipes, videos, and cheat sheets. And, you know, we answer members’ questions within a private Facebook group. So yeah, it feels really good to be able to offer that, particularly in the world, over the last couple of years. You know, it’s that affordable support, and really just inspiring and educating parents that there are other ways that they can sort of, you know, bring up healthy kids. And a lot of the parents that we attract are looking for complementary ideas to, you know, certain medications and things. Yeah.
Andrew: And it’s obviously a burgeoning population because you’re doing so well at it. And I got to say, you know, this is a real service that you’re doing for our population. So I thank you for joining us today on “Wellness by Designs,” and also just sharing some of your expertise about how we can help change the landscape of these kids’ immune systems. Because it’s so important, you know, we’ve got to get out of this SAD diet. We’ve got to get out of the white…beige, as you say, diet, I love it. But thank you so much for sharing these practical tips today on “Wellness by Designs,” I so appreciate it.
Jessica: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Andrew: And of course, thank you for joining us. You can get all the show notes and the other podcasts on the Designs For Health Website. I’m Andrew Whitfield-Cook. This is “Wellness by Designs.”