Some of our best memories from childhood are playing outside with our siblings and friends. It may have looked like playing made-up games in the park, hitting or kicking a ball in the alleyway, or even playing in the dirt in your backyard. Not only did we gain much from the ample exercise, social interactions, and growing independence, but our gut’s microbiome benefited as well.
How? Early exposure to soil – especially the fertile kind in which our plants grow – increases healthy bacteria in our digestive system and builds our overall immunity. The gut specifically means our intestines. In essence, much of the gut’s bacteria that break down our food lives in the last part of our intestine, the colon. And the amount and type of bacteria we have in our colon greatly affects our overall health.1 According to Geomorphologist David Montgomery, and his wife, Biologist Anne Bilke, if we are eating food grown in and playing in healthy soil, then our gut will also be healthy. He and his wife have authored the books, The Hidden Half of Nature, and What Your Food Ate,2 that focus on how the microbial life in our soil greatly affects our lives in many ways – agriculturally, pharmaceutically, and even personally at a physical and mental level.
Enhancing Your Body’s Ecosystem through Soil
As parents, we often worry about our children eating healthy food and getting enough exercise. Along with these important facets of their health, we should also care about where our children are playing. Along with what we were born with genetically, our gut microbiome is influenced by our diet, infections, outside bacteria, and plant and soil microbes.3 The role of the soil is to recycle the once-living back into the raw materials needed again for nature and human use. It sets the stage for new life. We can see an example of this phenomenon numerous times in the Quran in the following two verses:
“He brings the living out of the dead and brings the dead out of the living and brings to life the earth after its lifelessness. And thus will you be brought out (from death).”
(Surah Ar-Rum, 30:19)
“And it is Allah who sends the winds, and they stir the clouds, and We drive them to a dead land and give life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness. Thus is the resurrection.”
(Surah Al-Fatir, 35:9)
If we ensure the health of the life inside the soil at the microbial level, then it will ensure life above ground. Bilke explains that “plants use their ears to listen to soil life.” If they do not find any healthy microbes in there, then they will not invest and grow their roots deep into the soil – it will be a shallow soil system. How do plants “listen” to soil life? The glucose they produce through photosynthesis is sent down to their roots wherein they drip it into the soil. The drops of glucose should attract microbes that specialize in breaking down rock particles for nitrogen, phosphorus, zinc, and copper – micronutrients that are vital for plants to thrive. If they do not find those in the soil, the roots will not go deeper and the plant will not thrive. There is a crucial symbiotic partnership between plants and microbes as plants help build up organic matter that helps to build up the soil, which is a breeding ground for more microbes, which then help plants.
Moreover, these micronutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, are rare in nature and are recycled over and over again. Thus, it is better to use organic matter and set up a good composting system to ensure healthy soil. Therefore, putting fertilizer full of nitrogen and phosphorus from outside will indeed help the plants grow, but they will not be as full of nutrition as those plants that were given organic matter from compost – growth and overall health are two different outcomes. Alongside organic matter, phytochemicals are important as well. These two in tandem provide antioxidants and anti-inflammatories to our bodies preventing us from developing overall inflammation and chronic diseases.
If children’s bodies from an early age are exposed to composted, healthy soil, their microbiome will thrive and set the stage for the upcoming years, preventing them from inflammation and chronic illnesses. Add in regular consumption of fibre into their daily diet, and their gut’s microbes will have the food to ferment into medicinal microbial metabolites or compounds that quell inflammation, strengthen their intestinal lining, and build up their immunity. Organic micronutrients, phytochemicals, microbial metabolites, and a good fat balance of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats from organic dairy and meat will establish prevention of chronic inflammation or illness, obesity, or even heart disease.4
Increase Outdoor Play and Exposure to Healthy Soil
To ensure that our gut microbiome is exposed to healthy, composted plant and soil microbes, we need to make an effort to have our children play outside as often as possible from a young age. If you live in a primarily urban area, perhaps your child is not getting enough exposure to the grass, trees, and other flora and fauna. You may want to make it a priority to get outside to whatever green patch is available near you. Those families residing in suburban and rural areas have better chances of doing it, however. Moreover, parents must know if the soil their children are exposed to is filled with fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicides because it could pose hidden dangers.
If you would like for your family to purposefully go out more this year, especially during these warmer months, there is a way to making it a habit and start tracking it. The 1000 Hours Outside movement founded by Ginny Yurich proposes that the natural world helps our children thrive in all areas of development – academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. We are already in a habit of tracking our steps, calories, you name it, so then why not something as equally beneficial as going outdoors? She developed a tracker which you can download from her website. She chose 1000 hours because it had been studied that American children, on average, spend 1,200 hours in front of screens per year. Why not switch that into 1000 hours outside for our children, instead? This can be done by taking your child out for 4-6 hour time blocks each day, especially in the months between April and October in the northern hemisphere.
Here are some ways you can increase going outdoors as a family:
1. Start small and make it fun.
Start with your backyard or local park and build from there. Take the family on hiking trails. You can start with one hour a day and build more time as they get used to being outside. Moreover, let them play with a ball or sport they like freely, not on a team.
2. Include friends or other like-minded families in your outdoor excursions.
Including others will help your children feel that they are not the only ones being compelled to do this. You can also construct a scavenger hunt and include their friends so that they are made to engage with the natural environment around them.
3. Schedule a time and make it regular.
Make it a routine so that you can slowly build up their comfort with the outdoors and look forward to it. In time, they may begin asking for longer time outside and ask you to take them out more often.
4. Time spent outdoors is an opportunity for learning, too.
While on your walk or hike, explore the natural environment. Look high at the different cloud formations, the position of the sun, the birds in flight. Look low to notice the insects, the flora (trees and plants), the rock formations, and more. The exploration focus can lead to expanded curiosity and new-found interest in learning more about the beautiful world that Allah has created for us.
May Allah help you to increase your family time outside, enhance your curiosity and gratitude for the natural world around us, and nurture healthier minds and bodies (specifically our digestive systems). Ameen.
End Notes
2 Dig2Grow
3 The Microbiome: A Key Player in Human Health and Disease
5 The Microbiome: A Key Player in Human Health and
Sumayya Khan is a homeschooling mother of two and a teacher. She has worked with several Islamic schools and organizations in the last 10 years. She is currently teaching Literature online with Dawanet and studying the Qur’an through Al-Huda Institute. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her family and friends, play sports, enjoy nature, and read books. She currently resides with her family in Toronto, Canada.
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