Raena Morgan: This is a question that a lot parents worry about; how do you prevent your child from catching viruses, colds, things like that, from other children at the daycare center?
Dr. Molly Ferguson: Things that optimize your child’s immune system would be the answer. Making sure your child has adequate nutrition, again, that’s looking at a whole foods diet with lots of fruits and vegetables—all those nutrients that are necessary for your immune system to work. In addition to that, I would recommend that most children should probably be on a multivitamin, a children’s multivitamin, and also an Omega 3 fatty acid supplement.
Raena Morgan: Oh, they should?
Dr. Molly Ferguson: Yes. If you look at comparing our Omega 3 status, based on today’s food choices, comparing it to food choices back in the 1900’s, we were getting 10 to 20 times as many Omega 3 fatty acids because our meat products and our animal products were produced from animals that were eating green things.
Raena Morgan: Okay.
Dr. Molly Ferguson: They were living outside in the sunshine eating green things. And, the meat choices and the animal product choices that we have now just don’t contain the Omega 3 fatty acid sources anymore because they’re being fed grains and living indoors, etc. So, Omega 3 fatty acids are just one of those things that are necessary for health—general health, immune health [and] our whole well being because every cell in our body is made out of fats. And so, the fats that we incorporate into our diet are the fats [that] we get incorporated into our cells. Therefore, Omega 3 fatty acids are a supplement that I think everyone should be on whether it be children or adults. That would be another component for immune health.
Raena Morgan: Thank you Dr. Ferguson.
Dr. Molly Ferguson: Yes.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services