Overview
Rates of chronic illness, behavioral disorders, and neurodevelopmental challenges are rising rapidly among children, often tied to underlying gut dysfunction, nutrient deficiencies, and environmental triggers such as toxins and ultra-processed foods. Conventional treatments frequently overlook these root causes, relying instead on symptom management or medication. Functional approaches emphasize foundational lifestyle changes—clean nutrition, microbiome support, movement, sleep, and stress reduction—as powerful tools to restore health. Children are especially responsive to these changes, often experiencing rapid and dramatic improvements in behavior, mood, and physical symptoms. With education, testing, and family-centered strategies, parents can take simple, effective steps to help their children thrive.
In this episode, I discuss, along with Dr. Elisa Song, Dr. Suzanne Goh, and Dr. Elizabeth Boham why a root-cause approach is just as important for children, as it is for adults.
Dr. Elisa Song, MD is a Stanford-, NYU-, UCSF-trained integrative pediatrician, pediatric functional medicine expert, and mom to 2 thriving children - and she is on a mission to revolutionize the future of children’s health. Dr. Song is the bestselling author of the Healthy Kids Happy Kids: An Integrative Pediatrician’s Guide to Whole Child Resilience. Dr. Song created Healthy Kids Happy Kids as an online holistic pediatric resource to help practitioners and parents bridge the gap between conventional and integrative pediatrics with an evidence-based, pediatrician-backed, mom-approved approach. In her integrative pediatric practice, she’s helped 1000s of kids get to the root causes of their health concerns and empowered parents to help their children thrive by integrating conventional pediatrics with functional medicine, homeopathy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and essential oils. Dr. Song is chair of A4M’s pediatric education and has lectured around the world at leading integrative and functional medicine conferences and premier parenting events. She has also been featured in hundreds of top podcasts, print and online media outlets, including the Wellness Mama podcast, BloomTV, Forbes, Healthline, MindBodyGreen, National Geographic, PopSugar, Parents, Motherly, Parade, Verywell Health, and New York Post.
Dr. Suzanne Goh, co-founder and chief medical officer at Cortica, is a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Harvard University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School who has spent decades working with autistic children. Her work as a board-certified pediatric behavioral neurologist, behavioral analyst, neuroscience researcher, and author led her to create the Cortica Care Model, an innovative, whole-child approach that combines optimal medical treatment with the most effective strategies for advancing cognition, communication, and behavior.
Dr. Elizabeth Boham is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Albany Medical School, and she is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner and the Medical Director of The UltraWellness Center. Dr. Boham lectures on a variety of topics, including Women’s Health and Breast Cancer Prevention, insulin resistance, heart health, weight control and allergies. She is on the faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine.
Full-length episodes can be found here:
How to Raise Healthy Kids: A Functional Medicine Approach
