Below is an email I received from my son’s kindergarten class this week.  Now, mind you, I’m not making fun of this parent. She is like most parents and truly believes the following advice contains meaningful information.

“Hello Parents!

It’s our last week of school before the Winter Break and the much anticipated Holiday Performance is this Thursday (12/18, from 9-9:30 am). You may have heard that there were a few kids that were sick this past week (my son being one of them).  Please encourage your child to use healthy habits (washing hands, using tissues, covering mouths with arms, not hands) at home as well as at school. If your child is beginning to not feel well, please keep him or her at home in an effort to not spreading the illness. I sincerely hope all the kids are well enough to enjoy this festive week and to see all 29 of the kids’ happy, shining faces on Thursday!

Wishing you all a very healthy holiday season and new year!”

When you encourage someone to use healthy habits, it should be something that actually increases your ability to adapt to the environment better and not worse by avoiding it.

Example: 

Lets say you play golf or tennis and have knee pain.  You go to your doctor and he or she tells you that it looks like you may have arthritis.  They say that you can take ibuprofen to reduce swelling or reduce play down to once a week instead of your regular 3 times.  In both cases, which are sadly real advice given to people, the individual is not getting healthier or practicing healthy habits.  Despite the fact that short term relief may be achieved, the first option can produce unwanted side effects from medication while the second encourages less activity which will only advance arthritis faster.

So, we have to ask ourselves about the goal. Is it to simply feel better OR is to FUNCTION BETTER?

NOW, back to kindergarten and this mom’s advice.

”Please encourage your child to use healthy habits (washing hands, using tissues, covering mouths with arms, not hands) at home as well as at school. If your child is beginning to not feel well, please keep him or her at home in an effort to not spreading the illness.”

First you have to understand that most germs are good for us. Without these germs we all would actually die. Second, the only way to increase your ability to have more immunity is to be able to have a healthy immune system response to any bacteria, virus, fungus, etc. and adapt in an appropriate period of time.  You may not like having a runny nose, fever, or cough, but those are all normal symptoms of a healthy adapting immune system.  Unfortunately, our poor understanding of this has most moms thinking more antibacterial wipes and covering mouths are of the highest priority.

Why do you think only 5 kids in the class got sick instead of everyone, including the teacher? The answer is that it’s due the strength of the immune system of the people not getting sick, NOT the GERM. If it were the germ, we would ALL be SICK all the time!  As Louis Pasteur, founder of the Germ Theory, stated…”it’s the seed (body) not the soil (germ) that is the factor to watch.”

Fevers

Fevers help burn bad bacteria out of the body, yet parents reduce the fever throughout childhood which weakens the kid’s immune system. This makes kids more susceptible to other infections, allergies, asthma, etc. because the body has never built natural immunity. Parents trying so hard to rid the environment of bacteria with wipes, soaps, cleaners, canceling play dates because of a runny nose, etc. are actually not allowing their child to practice building their immunity!

Other than manners, covering your mouth with your hand vs. your shoulder is a pointless matter for true immunity building.  As far as spreading, germs can and do spread but do you really think a 5 year old is going to avoid other 5 year olds?!?

Immunity Workshop

We have our Immunity Workshop coming up in January. This workshop will cover antibiotics, vaccines, supplements, foods and more for this very important topic.  Parents are waking up to the fact that TRUE WELLNESS is NOT more tylenol, antibiotic soaps and wipes, or flu shots at CVS.  It’s about learning how to enter our environment naturally and be well prepared to fight the infection by respecting the body’s innate intelligence to adapt so it gets stronger.  Yes, like new exercise, you may need to feel bad (sore muscle) to get stronger (fever), but it’s your body’s way of learning and adapting so it’s better prepared for the future.

Mothers who know this don’t worry about winter and runny noses.  Those who don’t continue to run to the pediatrician all childhood long!  We are here to help you better understand this issue.  It’s not that we’re saying medication should never be used but rather making it the exception, not the norm!

Workshop Information:

Date: January 21, 2015
Time: 7:15pm
Location: McKinley Chiropractic Office
RSVP: this event is RSVP only, please contact our office as this is only open to the first 50 to sign-up.