On 22 October 2020 paediatrician Ellen van der Gaag will receive her PhD for her thesis entitled ‘Health-promoting effects of nutrition in children’. The award ceremony was originally planned for March 2020, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Van der Gaag’s thesis considers the effect of unprocessed, pure food on children’s health, specifically on the common cold and other upper respiratory tract infections.
An ordinary cold has serious consequences today. A child with a cold will be prevented from going to school or after-school childcare facilities, and its parents are then obliged to stay at home.