Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy (A Foundational Approach to Healing the LIFESTYLE)
Dr. Stacy, a traditional Naturopath who specializes in Functional (Foundational/Lifestlye) Medicine, is answering your questions in regards to health and healing. From hormones to gut healing and everything in between - listen in as she shares stories of her own healing journey, what she sees clinically, and what she has researched to give you the most up to date answers when it comes to healing holistically.
*This information is not meant to be taken as medical advice, or to replace the advice of your practitioner or primary care. It is also not meant to diagnose, treat, or cure diseases.
Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy (A Foundational Approach to Healing the LIFESTYLE)
#071 Why Our Children Are SO Sick When We Have More "Advances" Than Ever (And How We Change It)
What if I told you this generation of children is the first not expected to outlive their parents? Despite unprecedented medical advances, chronic disease rates in children have skyrocketed by 400%. As a Naturopath and mother, this reality keeps me up at night.
The perfect storm has been brewing: from compromised birth experiences to excessive sugar consumption, from constant screen time to environmental toxins. Our children's bodies are sending distress signals through anxiety, behavioral issues, frequent infections, and metabolic dysfunction. Yet we've normalized these conditions as "just part of childhood."
The digital landscape compounds these challenges. Children spend 5-7 hours daily on screens, receiving artificial dopamine hits that make normal pleasures seem insufficient. Blue light disrupts their sleep patterns and melatonin production, essential for cellular repair and immune function. No wonder 76% of children now have at least one chronic condition.
But there's profound hope. Our children are remarkably resilient when given what their bodies truly need: real food, consistent movement, outdoor time, appropriate boundaries, and proper sleep. By making intentional choices and modeling healthy behaviors, we can change their trajectory.
This isn't about perfection—it's about progress. Start with one home-cooked meal, a family walk, or a new vegetable. Frame these choices as gifts rather than restrictions. When children understand how their bodies respond to different inputs, they naturally gravitate toward what makes them feel good.
True generational wealth isn't found in bank accounts but in the vibrant health we cultivate in our children. What small change will you make today to support your child's metabolic health? Your choices now shape their future.
Join Dr. Stacy's Master Your Metabolism class in October to learn how to support you and your family's metabolic health
CGM (Code DRSTACY for 33% off!)
Resources mentioned:
Mycircadian APP DOCTOR (code)
Ra Optics (Code DRSTACYND) blue light blockers!
Bon Charge (Code DRSTACY) red light panel and circadian bulbs
Higher Dose (my FAV sauna blanket with low to no EMF) code DRSTACY
CGM (Code DRSTACYND)
Analemma Water (structuring)
Spring Aqua (my FAV water system)
To work one-on-one with me, you can apply HERE!
For more from me, follow me on IG @dr.stacy.nd
This information is just that; information only - not to be taken as medical advice. Please contact your primary care before changing anything to your routine. This information is not mean to diagnose, treat, or cure disease.
Welcome back to Vibing Well with Dr Stacey. This is Dr Stacey. I am extremely passionate about today's topic for so many reasons. Why this generation of children, with more medical advances than ever, is the first generation not expected to outlive their parents? So we're gonna unpack how we got here, what we can do, how we can change that trajectory and how we can empower our children and make them resilient, make them less prone to chronic disease than we are. It is definitely in our hands, and so we're going to talk about all the ways we can support these things. So hang tight, be right back. So I wanted to say I'm really excited about today's episode. I'm actually not. This is actually a really sad topic to me, but I want to leave with always a note of empowerment. So we're going to talk about how we got here, what's affecting this generation of children. We already see the deficits in our own generation and it seems like the symptoms don't really affect us until later adulthood, even though we might have seen some warning signs that were super normalized that we didn't really cue in on. But we're seeing that younger and younger and we see that, with chronic disease rates in children up 400 plus percent, there's a lot of factors that are affecting this generation of children. So we're going to go through those first and then we'll talk about what we can do to start supporting and kind of talk about the cycle of events. And, like I mentioned on Instagram, if you don't have a child, you most likely are going to interact right with that generation. Maybe you're even trying to get pregnant, and this is what you need to hear so you can prevent some of these things that we're going to talk about and have a healthy pregnancy, a healthy baby, but either way, you're impactful. And the other part of this conversation is to help understand, maybe, where we got to this place with our own health and piece those things together, cause I think it's always important to understand that cycle of events in that history versus just thinking our symptoms are completely random and, you know, just seem to be out of nowhere and then quote unquote, genetic or whatever it may be. But so I just want to kind of prelude this conversation into that. This applies to literally everybody.
Speaker 1:So let's kind of think about preconception to start. Okay, so, like we know, a lot of things happen at birth. We'll talk about that, but let's just think about what is passed down to our children and we even have studies of umbilical fluid and that are showing 200 plus toxins going into our babies before they're even on this earth, right? So there's a lot of things that they're exposed to not by choice, just living in the world we're in today. So let's talk about preconception. So mom's metabolic health mom and dad's metabolic health right, those things are passed down, their toxin load, like we just talked about. And dad's metabolic health right, those things are passed down, their toxin load, like we just talked about. Microbiome status right, all of those things are passed down.
Speaker 1:And if we're already at a disadvantage which, like I said, most of us are finding that out as leader adults, we are kind of passing that down to the next generation, right? So children are born into a way more toxic world than we were, right, like even just thinking about the wifi in the EMF and our lighting environment. And then, not to mention the food supplies, but gotten even more refined, more additives, more of all of these um, pesticides and mitochondrial toxins. So we have that we have a compromised gut microbiome, compromised immune system, compromised nervous system right, like I said, our lighting, our exposures to radiation have steadily increased. Our diets have become even more processed, more sugar-laden, more additives, more poisons, more dyes, those kinds of things. And then our lifestyles also more sedentary than ever. So children in this generation are spending less time outside than ever. And these reasons all are accumulative, right, and creating this perfect storm for our children to have any sort of chronic illness. Right, because they are all affecting the foundation and all affecting their um, basic mitochondrial needs to even think about getting to a place where their bodies can heal and repair properly.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the birthing situation, right? Um, so C-section rate is, as as of 2023, was at 33%. So, you know, given there's a time and a place, and I guess I want to preface this whole conversation really quick before we go any further into this. I meant to say this in the intro there is no judgment here. My husband and I have been on a journey since we first got pregnant with our first child and we have not done things picture perfect, right? We only do the best we can with what we know, and so I do want to preface this conversation. There is literally no judgment in what you are doing. As a parent, I totally get it. We are all just trying to do the best we can with what we have Right and um, you know, if I could go back 15 years, would I do things differently? A million percent. But that is the journey and that's where we get our wisdom and our experience and that's how we can. We can always continue to teach our children, as we know, better and we do better. So it's not to say, oh, if you didn't do this right preconception or birth or whatever it may be then your child is never going to be OK. That is definitely not the theme of this conversation. So we can always meet ourselves where we are now, always do better with information, as we know, to do better and implement those things. So I just wanted to preface that.
Speaker 1:So there is a time and a place for a C-section. Is it being overdone? Of course, just like everything right is being overdone and um, so that affects things like breastfeeding, right, and those things affect our microbiome, so that baseline for our immune system, nervous system, right, all of those things. So that's the connection I'm going to make. So, uh, breastfeeding rates are on the decline as well. So a lot of them uh, I think about 84% are starting at birth but then dropping off to 62% at six months, 40% at 12 months and then 28, um beyond that. So we are essentially in this lack of seeding for their microbiome. And then if mom's is already a little dysfunctional or dysbiotic right, then that is passed down and then we don't have that rebuilding process of a new, healthy, robust microbiome. So that is a whole other thing.
Speaker 1:And then we get our babies into the world right, and we immediately are told that we need to start vaccinating them. And you know this is not a political conversation, not a political issue. I am the most apolitical person you will ever speak to. This is really just talking about what I see, what I've experienced in my own life, what I experience with my clients clinically, all of these things, my clients clinically, all of these things. No matter what, where you stand on the vaccine conversation, it is really important to know that the vaccines that we had as a children, versus the schedule now, are ridiculously higher. So we're at 72 now. In the 1960s we were at three and then around the 1980s, when I was a child, we were anywhere from 11 to 24, depending on where you fell.
Speaker 1:So no matter where your stance is on that, you have to understand that is a lot of toxicity going into the child's body. Right, there's a lot of heavy metals. Um, that's a lot of stress on a child's system, especially when they already are challenged as far as detoxification and metabolism with their drainage pathways, their liver function, things like that. So that is something. So we immediately get them into the world, we're vaccinating them, we are giving them Tylenol, we're getting them steroids, we're getting them overuse of antibiotics.
Speaker 1:All of these things, all of these interventions and all of the suppression of these just small, you know, small acute symptoms that may pop up here and there to build a child's immune system. We suppress that, then we they lose their innate immune system function, right they're, they're more prone to chronic illness the more we suppress these acute things. So children have symptoms, right, drainage, mucus, fever, things like that. That is them for one. They're trying to support the very rapid collagen turnover that happens as they are growing. The body is trying to build up that immune system and then, like I said, if we're always constantly suppressing that and stopping that process is making them weaker across the board and less resilient. So then we add in, we try to force the body to do things we think it should be doing, or force them to get better quicker with steroids or antibiotics, things like that. But antibiotic translates into anti-life, right? Anti life, and so that is going to have metabolic and microbiome impacts. So we're already challenged in those areas and then we are just kind of blasting it with antibiotics and steroids and, you know, tylenol, which is blasting their glutathione levels, and so it's really hard to get them back into this place of balance, and that's why we're starting to see more and more symptoms and more and more chronic disease now, because their foundation is so challenged, right, just to start.
Speaker 1:So then let's kind of talk about the next cycle of events where, uh, we're starting to roll in the sugar, right. So I remember when my son was little and, um, gosh, I feel like I can't even remember if it was a three or six month appointment, um, but they were talking about how we should start introducing juice. Um, I feel like it was even talked about six month appointment, but they were talking about how we should start introducing juice. I feel like it was even talked about before we introduced the water, which was a little crazy to me. Oatmeal, right, all these things. You guys hear me talk about this stuff all the time when in regards to metabolism, but we're setting our children up for dysfunction. Remembering orange juice is pure fructose. What is that doing?
Speaker 1:Going straight to the liver, we have this whole increase of children with type two and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. That is how that cycle starts, right? So this cycle continues throughout childhood. Um, our teachers, our teams, um, you know, groups and organizations there are celebrations for everything. We're getting them more and more sugar. We're burdening their liver.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you guys heard my podcast episode about how much sugar the child's liver can actually break down per day without starting to accumulate in the form of fat and triglycerides, but an adult on, a normal metabolic adult, can break down about 21 grams of sugar. A child can break down about a third of that. So we're looking at about six grams of sugar a day. That is just a hair over. What's in a tablespoon of ketchup, an average serving of ketchup, and how many kids are stopping there, right?
Speaker 1:Um, so just important to know that those things are continuing to challenge their mitochondria, challenge their microbiome, challenge their metabolism, and then we kind of start to normalize things like childhood obesity, hormonal symptoms, pms, right, very painful periods, acne. I remember when I had really painful periods. I mean they literally would just give me pain pills and birth control and this is just normal. This is just how you're supposed to feel. It sucks, but this is where it's at Right.
Speaker 1:And then we normalize their crazy sleep schedules when children are actually so much more prone to that depletion of melatonin, which is our major antioxidant, um, our major what I call our cancer prevention hormone and antioxidant, our cellular renewal and repair antioxidant. Kids are so much more prone to that melatonin being suppressed. They are so much more sensitive to being off when it comes to their circadian rhythm and it. But then we normalize these things oh they're, oh, they're a teenager or whatever it may be, but it's just challenging their system even more and making them more prone to some of these foundational cracks because their bodies don't get an appropriate time of day, don't know what cycle to run and when, right, all of these things kind of just continue that cycle of inflammation into adulthood. Then it starts to look like infertility, metabolic diseases, right, type two, and that's getting younger and younger. I mean children are on the rise of that, no matter what. That doesn't even take getting into adulthood these days, but cardiovascular disease, hypertension, all those other things when, in all essence, those things have been building since childhood.
Speaker 1:I always say that our children deserve so much more than a life of fake food and destruction, and it's really hard for me to look around and see how much that is normalized and how much it is costing our children their imagination, their creativity, their happiness, right, not to mention their health, um it. We already know how much we are struggling in this generation with our own health as adults because of what seeds were planted for us as children. Right, we had the 1980s, 1990s, like, oh, let's throw sugar into everything. And we're we are and take the fat out, right, and let's process everything because it's so much easier, and we're still feeling the effects of that, right, so why would we ever single-handedly recreate that, except on even a more massive scale, because we have even more toxic environment?
Speaker 1:I will say, for me as a child, the only thing that was my saving grace was we weren't allowed to watch TV, we were sent outside to play, and it was like go outside and play, go be in nature, go get sunshine, come home when it's dark, and that's, that was my literal saving grace, because otherwise I was basically on an Ivy of soft drinks, um, you know, cereal processed foods. I think the only vegetables I had was, like canned vegetables. Um, I was not fed well by any means, um, and so I know that had a severe impact on how my symptoms started as a child and then continued into adulthood. Um, so there's no way in my right mind that I could ever contribute to that.
Speaker 1:When it comes to my own children or this next generation in general, it's not just my kids. My kids have friends. Come over, they're eating real food. We are, you know, we're not normalizing this. We're not playing video games where they're going outside, they're going fishing, they're, you know, doing dances and gymnastics and things like that. Um, every child deserves to have their childhood and to be out in nature and have real food. So, um, you know, I had a client one day I was talking to and, um, it really struck me because we were talking about, like we always talk about food and lifestyle and all the things, and I remember her saying to me I don't eat all the junky foods my kids eat, and that really, like, I just had this aha moment, like how can we normalize this for them?
Speaker 1:We know, like we won't, a lot of us won't put that in our own body, but it's okay because they're kids, right. Like that to me, makes absolute no sense at all and if we know that, okay, if we put that in our bodies, it's going to make us feel like X, y, z. Won't it have the same impact on our children, like, why, why are we turning a blind eye to it? Because they're kids, right? So for me, I want nothing more than my children to have a better state of health which is my definition of success and wealth than I ever had, right, growing up, and I'm so grateful that our bodies are so amazing and I was able to get myself to a way, better place, but riding on that sugar train for as long as I had. I have to be even more strategic about keeping my insulin levels in check, keeping my blood sugar in check, those kind of things, because my foundation was so challenged, keeping my blood sugar in check, those kind of things because my foundation was so challenged. So, for me, helping my kids learn the impact of things like food and lifestyle and time outside and activity and having an active lifestyle and enjoying that process and making them a part of it, but also making sure that I'm always exemplifying that to them is so very important, and I enjoy preparing whole real foods for them, made with love and gratitude, because I know what I'm feeding them and what I'm preparing for them is going to be what their bodies are built out of right, new cells, new tissues, signals of safety and balance and coherence in their body. There's nothing more I want for my children than that right. So, like I said, I want to go through some numbers just so we have a little bit of you know, kind of going back to that foundational like how do we get here? Situation.
Speaker 1:There were some studies that were highlighted with by Henry Ford Medical Center talking about vaccinated versus unvaccinated, the rate of chronic illness in unvaccinated children versus vaccinated and so vaccinated, like I said, now we're at 72 doses of vaccines for children. That is monumental, but the numbers were very astounding. So 329% more asthma, 203% more atopic disease, 496% more autoimmunity, 453 percent neurodevelopmental disorders, 228 percent more developmental delays and 347 percent higher speech disorders. So, like I said, this is not the only cause but it is a huge layer. It is undeniably a huge layer of toxic heavy metals and fillers. It is also creating that perpetual immune response in the body which will affect their ability to fight some of the more acute things that the body is trying to build up the immune system over, and it is also clearly not lowering any chronic disease in children or adults, right? So we are up 40% across the board since 1990s in children with chronic disease.
Speaker 1:So let's talk through just a few more numbers. One or more chronic conditions in children we are looking at 76.4%. And prevalence of multiple chronic conditions we are looking at about 51. So multiple chronic diseases or conditions, like I said, increase in allergies, arthritis, asthma, autoimmune disorders, digestive disorders, diabetes, eczema, gi issues, reflux, heartburn, ibs, inflammatory health conditions, recurrent infections like sinus infections, ear infections and colds, yeast infections all of those things. Okay, those are all on such a severe increase and we have more interventions and more vaccinations and steroids and antibiotics than ever. So clearly something's off right. Clearly this is not what they need to get over this hump.
Speaker 1:Over 50% of our children are now overweight. Over 75% of adults are, so obviously we know where this is coming from. 50% of our children are now overweight. Over 75% of adults are, so obviously we know where this is coming from. 93% of the population is metabolically inflexible. So let's get into this.
Speaker 1:How did we get here? Well, obviously the food supply has changed right. We have more processed foods than ever before. They are very much targeting our children. If only you knew how much they are paying for ads right around children's programming on television. You see the boxes, you see the bright colors, the cartoons, the influencers that are on the boxes of the cereal and all of the sugary treats. It is undeniable how much our children are targeted and I want you to take a step back and think about that. Why would children be targeted more than ever? Because a child with a metabolic or a mitochondrial challenge is a lifetime consumer of the solution or the pharmaceutical or the intervention right. So if you can get them younger and younger and younger challenged with their health, you have a perpetual consumer. For the rest, it is a business and you cannot trust someone who has the problem and the solution in one and the same right.
Speaker 1:So we have lots of added sugars and refined foods. We have foods that act like sugar in the body. This is something we cannot turn a blind eye to. So we might not be loading our kids up with cane sugar per se, but if we are letting them eat the breads and the pastries and the rices and the grains and the oatmeal and all of these things around the clock, nonstop, especially when children are more sedentary than ever, the clock nonstop, especially when children are more sedentary than ever. This is really hard on the metabolism because we know their metabolism is already a reflection of what we were going into, that conception, right. And so if mom's insulin was high, then the baby was swimming in that insulin in utero, right? Like children can be born insulin resistant already. And then we're giving them juice and snacks every you know hour, you know applesauces, baby foods, all these things that have sugar in them, puffs, things that have no nutritional value to them at all, around the clock which keeps their insulin higher all day, every day. It's the same thing, right? So, like I said, adult livers, like I told you earlier, can break down about 20 grams of sugar a day. That's a healthy adult. Now we already know 93% of us are metabolically inflexible. So that is already a challenged adult. So a child six. Before it starts to affect the liver, the metabolism, the mitochondria.
Speaker 1:So, like I mentioned, it's the foods we're eating, but it's also the frequency and what we're eating. We're eating all the time. You know, back in the day, grandma had it right, right Like she was eating dinner early, going to bed before the sun, waking up before the sun, like, literally, had it everything right. Also, don't eat, you're going to spoil your dinner, right Like we can't be snacking every hour. Children also cannot be snacking every hour, especially when they might even be have this hint of insulin resistance that they're born into and then we keep their insulin really high because we let them snack all day, every day, even if it's healthy food, even if they're just snacking on fruit. All day, every day is making them, um, setting the scene for metabolic dysfunction and insulin resistance. Um, like I said, celebrations all the time, right. Candy, sugar everything. Sporting events, school party oh, you did good on your test here. Have a piece of candy, right Like it.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of us are really unaware, if we have our children in a traditional model school, of how much sugar is really being given to them. And, uh, it's important to stand your ground on those things, right, like I ended up just saying oh, my kids are allergic to um, sugar, like they're allergic to sugar. I mean, they can't. What are they going to do? They're allergic to sugar. Sorry, they're allergic to that. I mean, I put so many things that they were like allergic to when they were in traditional model for about a year or so that it's like, okay, just don't, don't give them anything, it's fine. Um, you have to do that.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I'm sorry, but with the way these rates are with our children and we already see the symptoms and the you know their suppression of and they should be the healthiest generation like cause, they're new into this world, we, you have to go against the mainstream. You're going to, you're going to have to, so you're going to have to find your, your ways to do that and you're going to have to entrain into your children and also frame it to your children Like, hey, I'm giving you a gift, versus like I'm taking everything away from you, right. And so if we go into it like, oh, they're missing out, like what are they actually missing out on? Chronic disease, right? Like fatty liver, type two diabetes? I'm not, that's not going to come from me. If my children want to partake when they're out of my house, that's totally fine, but when I'm buying the groceries, I'm in charge of that. So nothing I'm going to do is going to reflect giving my children a chronic condition, right.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, celebrating doesn't have to be sugar, like we need to break that cycle and I think, if I can get my kids out of my house to say like, hey, you can go to a celebration, you can go to an event and not have to, like, feel like crap after because you've eaten so much sugar and now you have a migraine or now you're nauseous, you know, that is not a way that I'm going to celebrate. We can celebrate in other ways, right. So that's something that I definitely have been like trying to entrain into my children and they get it because, honestly, they feel like crap. Their systems are so clean, running. They know, because we've made those connections oh, you're nauseous. Oh, you have a migraine, what did you have right before that? Right. Connections oh, you're nauseous, oh, you have a migraine. What did you have right before that? Right. And then they make the connection because there's no connection being made with how, what you're eating and how you're feeling.
Speaker 1:It is such a lost language and it's so important because that is our number one exposure, the thing that we repeat the most right. We have to start connecting the dots there and the more we can teach our kids. They are so smart, they want to be the best version of themselves. They really do, and so we got to stop looking at it like, oh, I don't want to take that away from them. It's like I want to give them health, I want to give them resilience and I want to teach them how to do it, and maybe I'm on my way there with them, so we can all do this together as a family, because I never want them to struggle with the symptoms that I had growing up. Right, that's a gift. That's not something that you're taking away from them.
Speaker 1:So also, sedentary living. So kids are inevitably inside. They're inside all day. If they go to traditional school, they're inside all day, sedentary. They get home, they're doing homework, they're playing video games. They're inside all night, sedentary, right. So not only do we have this metabolic storm of events that's happening, but then they're sedentary on top of it.
Speaker 1:Children should be super metabolic. They should be able to tolerate more carbohydrates. It should be fueling their activity, but that's not where we're at right now. So I'm not an anti-carb person. I definitely give my children carbs strategically, but my kids are also very active. They hit the ground running from the minute they wake up till we go to bed. They are not just sitting around. And so that is the difference, right, and I've taught my kids to find their tolerance for what fuels them and makes them feel good and fuels their activity, versus too much where you have no energy right, where you're eating the wrong kinds of food and then you feel nauseous or migraines or whatever it may be. So, encouraging more movement in so, less than 20% of children get the recommended hour of daily movement and adults are no better. We're not hitting this either.
Speaker 1:And, um, I say adults even fall more into the trap of the active couch potato where we do the hour in the gym and then we sit the rest of the day. You know, um, this is that generation, our generation, all of the things. Not getting enough sunlight, so low vitamin D status, low immunity. We have low infrared, which we get from the sun right or get from heat that we make within our bodies by being active. Right, so we're losing mitochondrial energy, so more at a mitochondrial disadvantage. We have no connection to that circadian clock, and remember that kids are even more sensitive to that than we are. They're not getting enough time outside, they're not grounding.
Speaker 1:So we talk about grounding for adults, just as important for kids. There's a reason why kids don't ever want to have shoes on when they're little. And then you know, we force them on and we have these rubber soles and they're you know. So what does that do to children? So it, uh, builds up more acidity in their body, right, that's more mitochondrial poison. Essentially, it's happening, um it. That is their natural defense against the radiation exposure, the EMF exposure, the wifi, the Bluetooth, all those things. So the less they're outside, getting things like infrared, putting their feet on the earth, grounding, the Bluetooth, all those things. So the less they're outside, getting things like infrared, putting their feet on the earth, grounding, you know, and that doesn't have to be just like going, like playing in creeks Like my children have always loved to play in creeks and be outside and run around and things like that. It's not, you know, just grounding in general. It's something that they are severely missing, which is causing more stress on their cellular health and their mitochondrial function.
Speaker 1:And then the blue light exposure, which is something that we didn't have, right Like my generation didn't have that. Everything was in tube lit, right Like even our TVs. Everything was incandescent until I re. I even remember when the like the newfangled led bulbs, energy saving twisty bulbs came out. And then here we go, right, and now it's even worse because it's LED and the blue light technology on every screen. And so children are even more sensitive to adults than this and they're bombarded day and night, right Cause it's all over school now and, um, you know, it's keeping their cortisol really high. It's such a huge connection with things like ADD, adhd and anxiety. It's suppressing their immunity. There's metabolic implications, because we know that blue light is insulinogenic in and of itself. So we have this perfect storm once again of metabolic dysfunction.
Speaker 1:And then we have hustle culture in the children, right Like no downtime. And then we have hustle culture in the children, right Like no downtime. Pressure from schools, pressure from society to do year round sports, and everything we do is training them for this life of busyness, this addiction to stress and never having time to create, never having time to tune in, never having time to sit and practice mindfulness or even just learn the art of being bored, which was what happens right before we start creating something. So the quicker. There's a really good book called Dopamine Nation.
Speaker 1:I highly recommend reading that, but the quicker just you know a little blurb from that the quicker and the more intense of the hit of dopamine, right, that comes from things like social media and reels and all these short-form content things, the YouTube videos, all these things. The quicker and the more intense, the lower, like you don't even go back down to baseline with your dopamine. It goes even lower. So the more intense the hit you have, the lower into that deficit you fall. So that impacts their satisfaction, their happiness, their motivation, their drive, until that exposure stops. Right, like that's nothing is going to feel like enough when they're getting these constant hits of dopamine from artificial sources. So being out in nature is going to be like really painful, you know, it's going to be painfully boring until that's part of their normal again, right, like teaching them to appreciate the beauty of nature, being outside, enjoying simplicity of life and things like that. That actually like is painful for them to start if they are used to all these intense hits.
Speaker 1:Um, but with that being said, I even see a shift culturally where you know I'll give an example my son loves to fish and he has friends that are allowed to watch fishing YouTube videos and things like that where people are catching really big, really like putting up these huge fights, right, and all of a sudden they're pond fishing and they're, you know, two or three pound bass. Is not exciting enough, you know. And so they're having a really hard time for that being enough, like then they want to. Well, let's travel five hours to this pond where I know this guy caught this 10 pound bass. Like it's, it's, they're, it's never enough, right, they're never happy, they're never satisfied. They get, they no longer get the thrill of that where maybe a year ago that two pound bass would have been like the highlight of their year. You know, it's just nothing's ever good enough.
Speaker 1:And and the same with you know, I even see culturally, where we have a lot of friends, where the children are teenagers and there's no desire to, um, you know, no desire to even be interested in the you know, other sex, which I think it's important to kind of learn the process of, like you know, having friendships with the other sex and how those two, you know, how things we learn from each other. There's no desire. I'm not saying that's everybody, but I am seeing this like overall social lack of desire for teenagers in the opposite sex and, like I I said there's a lot of things. I mean, even if you think about just like environmentally, the um estrogenic compounds, bpas, dioxins, right, all of these things astrazine that's added into the tap water, all of these things are are affecting hormonal biology and that has an impact too. And then you bring in the high cortisol, high insulin environment and that's knocking things too. And then you bring in the high cortisol, high insulin environment and that's knocking things down like testosterone. So there's a lot of biological shifts that are happening.
Speaker 1:Um, but I do think a lot of this is coming from the intense swings of dopamine where nothing normal feels like enough anymore. Normal hits of dopamine, dopamine from a good workout or learning a new skill, which is a whole other thing, because kids are um, with the introduction of AI and all these things are are just getting the answers. They're not getting the wisdom of how we, how you get to that answer right, like they're not having to go to the library, look up books, you know, get to the answer and the conclusion on their own and enjoy that process of learning and wisdom. They're just jumping ahead to the answer and they don't know how they got there right. It's like there's no wisdom there, there's no intelligence that's being made, there's no neuronal connections that are being made there.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, I think it all comes back to just constantly chasing these hits of dopamine and they're no longer happy with just normal, just peace, right, and it really isn't training them for that hustle culture and that busy just for the sake of being busy, that addiction to stress hormones and stress chemicals, um, that sets them up Right, and that's it's. It's hitting them younger and younger, and we have a hard time, even as adults with a fully formed prefrontal cortex, finding ourselves like, how do we get stop scrolling right? Like how do we? It's very addictive, that is blue light technology is designed to make you addicted, right, and then you get the dopamine hit there and then you get in that lower, you know that lower trough, so to speak, from the dopamine hit and now it dropped off and now you need more and more of it to keep it going, and so that is something that's affecting our children as well.
Speaker 1:So, food, media, society, right. Everything's year round, everything's always on. You could stream TV, a show, anything, social media, all day and all night, right. This is creating that right and it's creating that inability to be truly happy and you know, it really is this cycle of events that I see that is affecting overall happiness and we see that even with suicide rates going up. You know part of that is the influence of comparison and social media and things like that.
Speaker 1:But, like I said, it also comes from not knowing what normal feels like right. Not being happy like normal is not enough. So things that are more addictive to children because they don't know when to stop right and, like I said, they're very much targeted and our prefrontal cortex is formed fully when we are 24. And that is our kind of like, the part of our brain that says all right, I've had enough, I need to stop. Women's are larger and men's are smaller across the board. That's just our physiologies a little bit differently, um, but children are not fully formed right At all.
Speaker 1:So the way I look at that is it's my job as a parent to limit the things that are literally designed to be addictive and to keep them constantly consuming right, the sugar, the screens, the hits of dopamine, all of those things. Those are not real life and this generation doesn't know what real life is because they're so caught up in this fictitious reality of social media, ai, comparing their life to fake photos, like even just fake photos. Like I, you know, we're building a house right now, and like I, I'm looking on Pinterest for some inspiration and things like that, and like I can't tell you how many of the things are like. This is not even a real photo, you know, and this is what our children are comparing their life to. Well, no wonder they're not happy. They're never going to be happy, right? Because they're comparing their life to something that's not even real. So, okay, I know I'm like going off on a tangent.
Speaker 1:I'm so passionate about this topic and so, um, I want to refocus back. Let's talk about suboptimal sleep schedules. It's something I see more and more now that my son is getting a little bit older. Um, so things that are normalized with teenagers, um, children are more sensitive to lighting and circadian rhythm than even adults and even more prone to that suppression of melatonin with blue light and remember that blue light is not just a suppression of melatonin, but it's a mitochondrial toxin. So it's even more imperative that they're having normal sleep times for things like hormonal balance, growth hormone release, reparative function, everything from gut health to digestion to nervous system, balance and health, liver detoxification, metabolism. All the things we need to be doing to nervous system balance and health, liver detoxification, metabolism. All the things we need to be doing at night when we are sleeping, just like adults, right? So, with that being said, let's go into the metabolic piece a little bit, because we've talked about how blue light and um, wifi and all these things are mitochondrial toxins, but they're also insulinogenic, so they affect our metabolic health.
Speaker 1:We already talked about how sugar is a huge player in this. Let's talk about blood sugar and children with non-alcoholic fatty liver. So we know that obesity is over 50%. Now. One in one in 10 children have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Eventually, we're going to have a whole generation that is not only like not going to possibly outlive their parents, but even not be able to serve in the military or the workforce. Like it's pretty bad right, like, like 50% obesity as a child.
Speaker 1:Once you have those fat cells, it is a struggle because you're always going to have the same amount of fat cells and it's just a matter of like. Well, now you know, to get into shape as an adult, you're going to have to work even harder, and that's something I have to do. I have to work even harder to keep my insulin down, to make sure those fat cells aren't constantly filling right, and to get my body into shape because of how I was set up for unsuccess as a child. Um, so where does a child get fatty liver?
Speaker 1:So we talked about anything over that six grams a day of added sugar, right, especially fructose. So the soft drinks, the juices um, you know I'm not going to talk about excess fruit in this moment because it's a different pathway, because it has some fiber and things like that. But I will say fruit that is out of season is going to have more of a metabolic impact on children. So that's all I'm going to say about that. But I think the bigger problem is the Starbucks, the sugary drinks, the high fructose corn syrup, the soft drinks right, juices, which seem completely innocent. I don't care how organic they are, they're still going straight to their liver and forming triglycerides and creating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Speaker 1:So all of those things, anything over that six gram per day mark is going to have an impact on your cellular function, the liver, your adipose tissue, creating more inflammation in the body, and you're going to start to see signs of stress and symptoms that maybe seem like they're completely unrelated, things like you know, maybe skin issues or sinus issues or frequent illness or migraines in children, things like that, but you always have to point the finger back to what's happening systemically and chronically and things like that, but you always have to point the finger back to what's happening systemically and chronically inflammation on a cellular level due to their metabolic and mitochondrial impairment. So, like I said, this starts when they're babies, especially if the mom already had insulin issues to start. And if you were a baby of the eighties and nineties, you probably had some blood sugar insulin issues to start. Uh, whether they were diagnosable or not, that's, you know, up for debate. But it used to take a lot longer to form, uh, diabetes and you know, up to 15 years, but now we're seeing it even younger and younger and kids. So, and then even formula right, there's so many. If you read the back of a formula container, there's so many corn syrup, solids and sugars and things like that is basically milkshakes for babies. Um, so many of them are.
Speaker 1:And um, so that is, you know, starts to create even more of that like, um, entrainment and addiction to sugar, but also that metabolic impairment and then, like I said, the all of the non-nutritive snacks we give the puffs, the oatmeal, the juices, the you know, the gummies, the fruit leathers, all these things right, soft drinks, sugar for every celebration, high carb, convenient, processed foods which are really addictive and a lot of parents are scared to take them away. You know when I know better, we do better and you know the minute I'm like. You know this is still processed food. It's organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, but it's still processed food. We don't need it anymore. We're not buying it anymore. You know it's, it is what it is. My kids don't fight me anymore. And then if they're hungry, guess what? There's an apple. You know like, they'll eat what you have, they'll eat what you make, um, and they'll eat more within their meals.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you that if you don't have all the junky snacks laying around, because that also trains them to be hungrier and eat less within their meals, when, when, just like adults, they should be eating three meals a day, eating within those meals, eating good, balanced meals, and that's the other thing they're about. The diet is extremely imbalanced very low fiber, very low protein and even low dietary healthy fat. Now high in omega-6s. If we're eating a bunch of fried food in the typical quote-unquote kids' meals. We're lacking real food, we're lacking fiber, we're lacking balance, right, and, like I said, this is normalized. I mean, just look at a kid's menu anywhere you go. This is normalized. I mean, just look at a kid's menu anywhere you go Chicken fingers, pizza, like just the junkiest food that you know why. Like, I just don't understand why we feel like that generation deserves that right. Like that to me is like treating them as suboptimal, like, oh well, you don't need to have good health, so here, just have the junky food, you'll be fine, you love it. It's so addictive, anyway, you love it. And this is so normalized. It's like, oh, we don't want our kids to miss out. Miss out on what?
Speaker 1:Like I said, 80% of the chronic diseases that are metabolic, meaning completely preventable. The preventable, the high insulin, the high blood sugar, equals high inflammation. Blood sugar swings in children looks a little different than blood sugar swings in adults, but either way, it's keeping them in a high cortisol environment which suppresses their immune system. We'll talk about cold and flu season in just a second here. But anxiety and panic that was definitely what manifested for me as a child. Um debilitating anxiety.
Speaker 1:It my earliest memories are insomnia and anxiety, recirculating thoughts predicting the worst possible thing that could ever happen. I was terrified at the end of the world big, deep, dark thoughts for children. And it was all due to my body being in that constant state of high cortisol, my blood sugar swinging to the point where I couldn't sleep at night, and then anybody who knows like you get a poor night of sleep, you're already insulin resistant going into the next day. That cycle perpetuated itself for a really long time with me. Now, sometimes it looks like rage or mood swings, and so we're just like what the heck?
Speaker 1:Now, that can also be due to the screen and device time Cause anybody who has a child, who you know, like you try to set limits on screens and then, once that time limit goes off, all of a sudden you you're like, did I just take crack away from this child? Like it is undeniable how addictive those things are, especially when you, um, like I said, you limit your time and you tell them no and you take it off. Uh, take it away from them. That's why we just don't do it. We just don't do it anymore. I'm like if my children's going to act like that, then that is definitely messing with their reward pathways, so we're not even doing it. You know it's undeniable and the children are so much more stable on the backend.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about it in relationship to blood sugar swings, because that's another thing, right, like when they're having these lows, these huge swings which are a lot of stress and inflammation in their body and they have that low, low, that's a mood swing, that's rage, right, cause their body needs energy quickly and so they don't know how to vocalize that. Also, those constant chronic gut infections, right, we? We always told to go there first. But, like I said in last, my last podcast episode, how that is so highly connected with things like our metabolism and our motility and our bioflow and um stomach acid secretion, all those things that point back to what's happening with our metabolism. Um, seizures on a really extreme scale, but I've seen it um several, several times. Um very related to those blood sugar ups and downs, add, ADHD.
Speaker 1:Like I said, there's a connection with our lighting environment and the flicker of our light. If you want to know what the flicker is in your light, lighting environment, um, put your phone on slow-mo and just set a little record there for a few seconds, turn it off. Go back and watch it. You'll see how often the flicker is actually happening. That keeps our children's nervous system very heightened, keeps their cortisol really high and makes them more prone to some of these behavioral labels, when in all reality it's their nervous system responding to things like their blood sugar swings and their lighting, environment migraines.
Speaker 1:This is something that my son experienced for a long time. He had the mood swings and he had the migraines, and for us, we were just like up in arms. We had no idea what could have possibly been the cause and then it would started to look like allergy symptoms and sinusitis and things like that. We're like what the heck? So we're treating the sinuses, we're treating all these things separately, when all it really boiled down to was what was happening to him metabolically and mitochondrial. On that mitochondrial level, those things that weren't being met Chronic infections, flus, cold strep, ear infections that was part of my life for a really long time too and of course, more blasts of antibiotics just make it even harder for that nervous system to find balance, that immune system to find balance. It's not the problem. The problem is the energy production and distribution right.
Speaker 1:What's happening on that cellular level, ruminating thoughts and worry. This is something I hear a lot in children. When they're laying in bed or they can't go to sleep, they're really restless and they're just thinking all these horrible, like they're predicting these worst case scenario things in their mind and that is a sign that their cortisol is really high and they're kind of stuck in that state of survival because they're trying to predict their way out, like if they can survive it in their mind, then they're, they're safe and that's what they're trying to do. So, trouble sleeping. Like I said, if they're not sleeping, they're not healing and they're already at a metabolic disadvantage the next day and that cycle will continue. Um, a loss of energy on a cellular level creates, creates lots of symptoms that seem like they're not connected at all, but it boils down to energy conservation a loss of energy on a cellular level that will eventually affect a specific tissue, then an organ, then a system, and it all is showing you that your body needs stability in this area. Um, from whatever symptom is being manifested first, right, so let's talk about.
Speaker 1:We already mentioned some screen time things. I just want to go a little bit more in depth with that. Children in the US are putting in an average daily screen time at 5 to 7 hours for kids ages 8 to 18, and even three hours plus for younger children. So what this is doing is it? It's normalizing these hits of dopamine, these artificial hits of dopamine? It's desensitizing them to what they're seeing on these screens. Right? Some, some of the violence god, I mean, I don't even know what's on TV anymore, honestly, because we don't. We don't partake and we watch like HGTV and, every once in a while, food network, and that's about it. But also we have the blue light exposure that is going to draw them more inside right, more disconnected from nature and sunshine, and all those mitochondrial supports we get from being outside and nervous system supports we get from being outside, and so that's causing their nervous system to be in that disadvantage as well. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that one in five American children has ages 3 through 17,.
Speaker 1:About 15 million has a diagnosable mental, emotional or behavioral disorder in any given year, and 80% of mental health diagnoses in adults started in the child. So is it really like a brain issue? Is it a brain chemistry issue, or is it the environment that is creating that status of mental health? The nervous system is responding. Like I just talked about the flicker in the lighting environment, the nervous system is responding to everything from lighting to heavy metal status, which we talked about the load of vaccines and I'm not going to. You know it's not going to be all about vaccines today, but here's the thing the heavy metal load from those alone basically makes them an antenna for things like the EMF and the Wi-Fi, right. They're more prone to things like parasites and gut imbalances which impact the nervous system and the neurotransmitters in the gut. Right, where 90% of those are created.
Speaker 1:And then we have the blood sugar status and metabolic function, the lack of nutrients, right. The lack of cofactors needed to rebuild and repair for that we need for optimal function right. And then even the. We're talking about what the nervous system is responding to, right. So it's always sensing things like nutrient levels, radiation, right, all these things. It's always sensing the blood sugar status. It's responding to all these things, but also the things that we are normalizing as far as lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Like all these things, but also the things that we are normalizing as far as lifestyle, like the busyness busy for the sake of being busy, never having any downtime, always, anytime we are bored, we're turning on a screen, we're distracting ourselves, we're never sitting and creating, and we couple that with subpar sleep, where the brain can't repair and heal. Remember, we have that lymphatic system that needs to drain, we're into the lymphatic system and neurons need to heal and repair and all these things need to happen. And so now we have this perfect storm for all sorts of symptoms and dysfunction, and it looks really separate, but it really boils down to the same foundational needs, right? So let's come back to what we can do and also change our mindset instead of looking at this as like a burden, like I think that a lot of us are so overwhelmed and I think a lot of us are caught up in that busyness and lifestyle and that high stress, high cortisol state, busy, busy, busy that we do look at feeding our not just our bodies, but our family's bodies as a burden. Right, like it's just one more thing we have to think about, and we have to think about it at least three times a day.
Speaker 1:Right, we need to be thinking about our bodies. You know, I I guess a way I want to like does anybody know what happens when you put sugar in, like a gas tank of a car? Like the engine completely stops. Right, and that's exactly what happens to our mitochondria. I want you to think about your body as like this Ferrari right, and that's. I want you to think of your children's body as that right, like would we put sugar in that gas tank.
Speaker 1:What we eat is our energy source. Right, and not just that, but that's a building block for new tissue, and I can't help but think about that every time I fuel my body or I prepare food for my children and my family. I don't want their bodies to be built out of processed, refined, junky, snacky, no nutrient foods right. Our bodies are vehicles in which we get to experience and enjoy this world. Right, and our kids deserve the absolute best fuel we do too that we could put into it because, honestly, we really can't afford to not do this. Right, we really can't, and this is the biggest input that we have control over. And on top of that, I think a lot of people are excited because the government seems you know I'm not political, I'm very skeptical the government seems to be trying to elicit some change in some things, but we can't wait for that. We really cannot wait for that.
Speaker 1:When you know better, you do better, and you have to know that every dollar you spend, every meal you prepare, is voting for the state of health that you want in your body and the future of the food industry that you are trying to support. And your body is reflecting back to you and your child's body is reflecting back like a report card, whether what you are repeating the most and food is the most constant input right is creating more balance and health or creating more chaos and inflammation and incoherence. Eating clean quote unquote like I talked about in Instagram earlier this week, is not enough. We have to eat to support our own individual and metabolic needs. We have to be moving our bodies, we have to be using that energy, we have to be sleeping well All of these things. Eating clean. You could go to the grocery and find a ton of clean quote unquote processed, crappy, refined, processed foods and eating foods that have traveled all the way across the world and lost all of their nutrition, and that's what we call eating clean.
Speaker 1:Like we really have to tune in If our body's telling us otherwise via symptoms and you know, chronic disease and all of the things that we need to tune that in a little bit more right, because that is our power, and that is our power and it's our tool for change, and it should not be a burden. If it is a burden, then we need to think, we really need to kind of reframe that. Why? Why do I think this is a burden? Because I know once I start this, I have to be intentional every single day. That's a lot of it, you know, but what deserves that time and attention any more than our health, which is truly the only wealth that we will ever be able to generate, right? That's the closest thing we have to a forever home is our bodies and our minds and our cognition and our ability to experience life Right. And so we can't wait for the government to make these decisions for us. We can't wait till they clean up the food supply. It's not going to happen. Like I said, you can't offer the problem and the solution at the same time. I don't trust that we have the power in what we are choosing to buy and repeat and support, and so I want to talk about a couple other things and then we'll round out exactly like how we support these things.
Speaker 1:Cold and flu season is just something I wanted to throw out there, because we're getting there. Right, it's September, we're getting there. I want you to think about what's actually happening, because I think a lot of us are like, oh, we have to boost our immune systems, right, like cold and flu season. There's a lot more going on than just these random viruses and bugs floating around during this time of year. Okay, so we are drawn inside even more because it starts to get cold and we don't want to be uncomfortable, so we have less time outside, less infrared, less sunshine, which the sun signals are always there, you know. It's just a matter of we're not going outside anymore because it's cold. We don't want to be uncomfortable, which makes us less resilient, right On a mitochondrial level and everything else. Kids anybody who's kids, you know, you're chasing around trying to get, get them to put a coat on. They're not cold, right, like for one, they have connection with their Brown metabolic fat, but they also they want to be outside, you know. So we need to be more like that, but also more sedentary living.
Speaker 1:When we're drawn inside more, we are eating more carbs, candy, refined foods and sugars because we are in the holiday season and that is apparently how we celebrate, right? So we have Halloween candy that goes all the way from September till you run out, right. And then you have Thanksgiving and let's have like a million Thanksgiving celebrations and all of the desserts and all the things. Now, I am not anti-holiday by any means. It's one thing to celebrate with one meal on one holiday right, that's fine. But we end up extending these things to month long processes, right. And then we have candy for every celebration, and so we're just challenging our mitochondria and our immune system even more with every time we are putting that sugar into our body. And then we're more sedentary and so we have less melatonin because we're drawn inside more, we have more screen time and we have less vitamin D.
Speaker 1:Now, naturally, we're going to have less vitamin D. That is free and available in the winter, especially if you're somewhere where you don't have that that high UVB and things like that. But what happens is that our receptors for our vitamin D are also receptors for melatonin, so that becomes our antioxidant of choice in the winter. That is how the body's designed. We shouldn't have high levels of vitamin D in the winter if we're not living, you know, anywhere other than the equator, so we could go into that all day long. But either way, we need melatonin to be coming into the scene and if we're suppressing that because of our environment, because of our Wi-Fi and EMF exposure and our blue light exposure, we need to be thinking about that.
Speaker 1:How can we support that differently in the winter? How can we be making sure that we're getting outside, getting sunlight, you know, getting the sun signals, even the lux. That's going to help with our nervous system and all of those things. And we need to be helping our kids do this too and staying active even when it's cold outside. Right, like somebody told me one time, they're like there's no bad weather, just bad equipment. And it makes so much sense Like we are moving to Tennessee next year. We are not going to stop being outside. We're from the Midwest anyway. Like we feel like cold here is like nothing anyway. But Florida has definitely taught us to love outdoor living and being outside all the time. But we will carry that through, even when we go to Indiana to visit and our family's like, oh my gosh, you're going to eat outside. It's so cold outside and it's like you know 50 and we're like, yeah, we like love being outside. This is feels great, you know. Um, that's not going to change. The sun signals are always there throughout the year and your body still needs a cue into your circadian clock, especially our children as well, because they're growing right. They need all of these hormones to fall in place lots of things. Um need all of these hormones to fall in place lots of things. So the sun is always there. We always need to be getting it.
Speaker 1:But coming back to cold and flu season, the next time your child gets sick, I want you to be curious and invite you to look at what their food intake was like the couple days before that happened. See what could have contributed. Or were they drawn inside more? Was it a party that they went to where they had a lot of sugar, a lot of candy? Remember what those do to our fuel tank, right To our mitochondria and overall energy production. It shuts it down. It's a mitochondrial toxin. So we're already at an energy loss. So then we start to have symptoms and immune suppression. We call it viruses, I call it inflammation on a cellular level due to metabolic dysfunction. That is what is happening on the mitochondrial level and no amount of immune system boosting will ever fix that.
Speaker 1:Our children need our help and direction with this more than ever right, and my goal as a parent is to have them leave my house with a sound body, a sound mind, time to enjoy this wealth that they've created in their own health and in their bodies right. And also time to tune in and create, tap into their intuition so they can discover their gifts, their talents right, the things that bring them joy. They're going to have a lot more joy when they're not getting artificial hits of dopamine, and you can't do that in a state of internal or external chaos or chronically inflamed environment. You can't tune into your intuition, you can't create. That is the opposite of creating. That is keeping you in a state of survival. And our kids are there too, remembering that children don't listen, they imitate. So we can show them with our actions how to create space, how to not be addicted to devices and foods and alcohol. This will be their foundation in their home. Even if they stray from the path in the future, they will know like. This doesn't feel right, right, like my nervous system, my digestion, my energy feels better when I do this. That will be their home, and so we want to model the behavior that we want to instill in them.
Speaker 1:We don't. It's really damaging to be like oh, I want my health to be better, I'm going to eat different, but I'm still going to feed my family junk. That is very contrasting behavior, because the kids are, you know, in their mind they might still be addicted to that junk for a while and I'm telling you, the transition process is not nearly you have. You don't have enough faith in your children if you're worried about taking it away from them because, I'm telling you, they are so resilient and they want to be healthy, so we want to instill in them what normal, our best version of normal, can be right, because do as I say, not as I do, is very confusing and very conflicting in adults and children. And the kids are going to see right through that right. Probably call you out on it too. They're so smart and want to be happy and they want to feel good. They want, they just may not know how to support those things on their own right. And that's where we come in.
Speaker 1:They need real food. They need the fiber for their microbiome. They need the fiber for a normal, stable blood sugar response. They need protein for building blocks, right. They need healthy fats for hormone function. They need balance in their diet and they need real food. As much as you can connect to real, local, you know, regenerative food as much as possible, but just whole, unprocessed food to start. That is what they need. Even you know.
Speaker 1:I just want to touch on for a second. My daughter for a really long time ate a lot of baby food in those pouches. And now, since she didn't challenge her jaws enough when she was little and we didn't know any better, like I said, if I could go back I would do things a lot differently. But now we're paying for a palate expansion and airway development and myofunctional training because of how we we chose to feed her as a child and what I was looking at was like oh, it's got lots, lots of vegetables in it and things like that. It didn't have the fiber, it didn't challenge her jaw, it didn't help with her jaw development and then she ended up having crowded teeth and was snoring at night and things like that, because she didn't have that right.
Speaker 1:And so children need real food. They need to be eating adult food, not kids' meal food, real food. We need to include them in the grocery shopping, the meal prep, the farmer's market right. We need to model this behavior but also include them into it Gardening, if you can, even if it's a herb garden, chickens, if you can get a chicken or two, something like that they will take pride in that and they will take pride in feeding and fueling their bodies. They're not going to look at it as punishment if we don't. And then helping them make those connections with food and how they feel. So it's not to say food is as good or bad, not to demonize food, but simply learn to say, like all right, well, if you felt this way and you felt nauseous an hour or two later, what could you do differently? Like how could you balance that out a little bit better? To learn to make those connections with certain foods that produce certain outcomes right and the feelings that are associated when those foods are consumed. They will eventually make that connection on their own and want to make better decisions, I promise.
Speaker 1:Another thing we can help them is encouraging them to get outside. Set those boundaries with screens, set screen time limits, whatever it may be. Anymore, we just took the iPads away because we just love when they create and we want to teach them how to be bored, which is the moment that happens right before they start creating and when we start to see that creative spark kind of dimmer, we knew that it was because of the screens, and so we were like as a family, we just said, hey, we're not doing this anymore. They can talk to their friends. They have a phone, we have a home phone that they can talk to their friends. They, you know, they have a phone. They can, uh, we have a home phone that they can talk to their friends on. They can FaceTime their cousins and things like that, but everything else is blocked. Um, so they're not doing that. We encourage them to get outside. We encourage them to create. They are very creative kids. They have lots of talents that they like to play with and we like to encourage that back in. If they, if we notice that they want to distract themselves cause they're, cause they're bored, it's like that's fine. Why don't you go outside for a few minutes, you know, go ride your bike around the neighborhood or something like that, and see, see what the next step is for you.
Speaker 1:Watch the mitochondrial toxins. Remember, those are the heavy hitters. Those are what are affecting cellular energy, which starts to look like lots of random symptoms, but it boils down to what's happening on that cellular level. So, whether that is heavy metal exposure, glyphosate, sugar, fluoride, emf, wi-fi, blue light, those are the top mitochondrial toxins. So the more we can find balance and distance ourselves from those as much as possible remembering too that children also need to have stable blood sugar and metabolic balance and so the more we can coach that in with them as a foundation, the less likely they will struggle with that as adults.
Speaker 1:Children make us want to be better, so we can exemplify healthy habits and lifestyles to them. See how we challenge ourselves right, they're looking at how we challenge ourselves physically, mentally, when we try to learn new skills, when we're working out, when we're pushing our bodies, pushing our minds, expanding, trying new things. Children want that. They know innately that that's why we're here is to experience things and try new things and expand. And we're kind of um, we're kind of in this place where, like I said, those things that should be coming normally to us are not, because we we kind of freeze up, because our nervous system's in a state of freeze because of how we choose to live our life, and so that expansion doesn't happen, that growth doesn't happen. We're not trying new things. New things are tagged as a threat and the same thing is happening for our children.
Speaker 1:And remember that they need time time to create. They need peace and safety in their mind and body, and it's our job as parents to provide and mimic and, you know, imitate that, um, instill that stability and consistency to facilitate their journey. Right, if something is designed to be addictive, I, as a parent, have the right to create that boundary for them, right? We're all trying to figure it out, um, why not take them on that journey with us? If we're trying, if we're struggling, and we know like this was due to what happened as a child I can't tell you how many people, even working with blood sugar metabolism, they're like, yeah, like, I used to have hypoglycemia as a child and they just told me to eat more sugar to pull myself out of these events. And you know, they, they were never treated properly. And so we see the same things in our own children. It might look different, you know, but still a sign that foundational needs are not being met.
Speaker 1:Why not take them on that journey with us? Why not shift it as a blessing and as a gift and not a punishment to go against the mainstream, because you already know what mainstream is going to produce. It's going to produce you as a lifetime consumer of pharmaceuticals and now your children are in on that and a lifetime of chronic disease. And we know we can do more. We, we have the power to do more than that. We can change our trajectory any second of any day. So why don't we want to do that Right? We're never going to have it perfect, but we do have more information than ever than we know what to do with. And we're still clinging on to habits and lifestyles and things like that that we know is contributing to chronic stress on the body and our children's body and creating chronic illness. So why not just start small, start with something you can do, start with one shift to try to produce a different outcome, because, like I said, we already know what we're producing right now. We can see it in our health and the health of our children, and so if we're not getting the outcome we want in either of those situations, we just have to start to choose differently.
Speaker 1:And it's not a complete overhaul overnight. This has been 15 years for me in the making, um, but when I know better, I do better, because it's very hard for me to turn a blind eye to be like, well, one won't hurt, yet yeah, it does actually Right. Like it actually does hurt. And I, it's very addictive. So, yeah, one is not even what I want to play with, because we live in a very addictive society. So if I know something's not going to serve me, well, I'm not going to do it right. And so it just it snowballs very quickly into oh, we did it once. Now, well, you know, we're going to celebrate this birthday all weekend with several dinners out and several desserts and things like that.
Speaker 1:Like I said, you have to want more. You have to raise your standards for you and your family and you have to make decisions accordingly. And you have also in the back end of that. You have to stop looking at it as a punishment. It is a blessing and a gift to fuel your body in a way that is going to give you energy, vitality, optimal health, right Autonomy as we get older and as we age. And it is a gift to give that to our children, knowing that, for one, they're going to outlive us hopefully, and, for two, that they're not going to have to wait on us hand and foot, because we're taking care of ourselves as well. If we can give children the gift of health. That is the absolute. That is generational wealth, right? That is more than anything else we could give them. That is absolute generational wealth. And so why would we want anything more than that for them? Because if you don't have your health, you have nothing, and anybody who's had their health taken from them knows that if you have your health, you have everything.
Speaker 1:So I know this can produce a lot of you know, a lot of emotions and a lot of guilt, and that's not what I want to end on end on. I definitely look back at things I've done as a parent with a lot of guilt and I try to get out of that because I'm like, okay, I know better now and I'm changing it, you know, and that's where we have to do. Okay, where do I start from right now, if I feel like I've gotten so far off the rails? What can I do differently right now? Maybe I'm just making one more home cooked meal a day. Maybe I'm just trying to, as I ease out of processed food, I'm trying to buy more real whole foods. Maybe I'm going to introduce my kids to a different vegetable.
Speaker 1:Whatever it may be, what can we do? What can we shift? If you're on a healing journey, bring your kids along with you. You want them to be healthy too, right? So one shift at a time. Maybe you're doing a family walk, like my family. We used to be those people that ate later. We definitely have shifted that in the past few years, when I was discovering my own journey with blood sugar and metabolic health, and now it's a family walk when we would have had dinner and we eat dinner earlier, before all the sports and things, and everybody feels better and everybody has more energy and all of a sudden the migraines go away and the mood swings and the you know, the nausea and all of the things that we were dealing with. That seems so completely separate, but we're really boiling down to the same foundational needs we needed Um, what could you work in?
Speaker 1:How could you work in some activity? You know, where could you help set some boundaries in a healthy way? Um, these are all things that are in our control to change, and that's what I just want to leave with this note of empowerment. And I know that, just like our children are resilient and when they know better, they'll do better, we are the same and so, if we can just start increasing a little bit of new exposures, new choices, we will produce a different outcome. So every choice you make and this looks a lot easier when you have a goal with what you're trying to hit you can question like, is this getting closer to my goal or further away? And if we're trying to build up health and resilience in our family, then we at least at least have a guideline that we're working towards and a new set of standards to be in alignment with. That it makes those decision-making that much easier, right? So, um, yes, I have talked your ear off today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys, so much for for who hung in there with me and we're just willing to listen to my side. Like I said, do I do everything perfectly? I do not, but I I really try, I really practice what I preach and I've seen such tremendous outcomes with my own health and my family's health and in everything I talk about. So it is never out of a place of judgment just to say, hey, if you shift things just a little bit, I promise you're going to get a better result. And I truly I see it, I feel it, I've lived it and and that's what I want to always um make sure that you all feel that with me. So, all right, I hope you guys have a beautiful rest of your day today. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you want more from me, head to my Instagram at drstaceynd. Otherwise I will talk to you guys next time. Have a great rest of your day.