Ep. 99 Is Keto Diet Safe For Teens?

In this episode you'll learn:

• What the American Academy of Pediatrics actually says about low-carb and ketogenic diets for teens 

• Why keto can work in adults but carries different risks in growing teen bodies 

• The psychological risk no one is talking about 

• Why "what should we add?" is a smarter question than "what should we cut?"

 • The 4 simple changes that improve insulin sensitivity without ever putting a teen on a restrictive diet

By the end, you'll know exactly how to think about this — and what to do instead.

Do you worry your teen is gaining weight quickly or seems hungry all the time?
Are you afraid this could lead to prediabetes or diabetes later in life?

That’s why I created the “Healthy Weight Starts with Healthy Habits": A 7-Day Hormone Reset Program for Teens.

ONLY $25 - Learn more here !

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach. 
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

 Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss For Teens podcast. Today, I'm gonna talk about low carbs and keto diets. Before you put your kid on a keto diet, I want you to stop and listen there has been recently a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics that gave, recommendations specifically on this . So I'm gonna break it down what the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a way that is simple and easy for you to understand, so by the end of this episode, you will know exactly what to do. So let me just start by telling you a story with one of the moms I work with. Let's just say her name was Sarah. Sarah had a 14-year-old daughter who was gaining weight. She was always tired, always hungry. She was craving sugar. The daughter was very sad about her weight. She wanted to do something about it, and she went online and discovered keto. She started reading about keto diet. She went on a keto diet, meaning, she was having less than 20 carbs, every day, and she did have some response, meaning that she lost some weight. After some time, that was not sustainable, so all the weight came back because she started to eat normally. She came to see me at that point. She was very frustrated, and she was looking for a better solution on, how to manage that because she also have early signs of pre-diabetes, and she wanted to make sure that she would not go down that path. I know that, Sarah had the best intentions for her daughter. She was a concerned mom. She wanted to do the best but she didn't have a clear path. And this is why I created this episode because I think there are many other moms out there that wanted to know what to do. So the question is, should I give keto diet to my teenager? Is this the right approach for my teenager to go on a keto diet? And I can say that it's not, a straight yes or no answer, but I want you to fully understand the pros and cons, and by the end of this episode, I want you to make an informed decision of what this entails and whether, this would be a good choice for your teen. Why does this make sense? You have thought about trying low carb because once, people, eat something that has sugar, the insulin goes high. That makes the carbohydrates break down into sugar. The sugar goes in the blood, then the pancreas releases more and more insulin to bring the sugar down, and then the sugar is used to create a lot of energy. Now, when a teenager has insulin resistance, that means the body has to increase insulin significantly higher, it produces lots and lots and lots of insulin, in order to control that same amount of carbohydrates the teenager is eating. We know that having extra weight gain makes the insulin resistance worse. When you have a lot of insulin, that doesn't help break down fat so let's cut back on the carbs, so there is no insulin secreted, and there's not fat storage and that's how we lose weight. There is good evidence that keto diets work, especially in adults that have type 2 diabetes or adults that have insulin resistance. It works. But, teenagers are different. Their brain is still developing. The hormones are still very high. Teenagers are still growing. Teenage girls particularly are trying to normalize their, menstrual cycles, so what did the American Academy of Pediatrics put in that report in 2023? The actual title is Low Carbohydrates in Children and Adolescents With or at Increased Risk of Diabetes. And this is what the pediatricians are referring to, and this is what they use to counsel, teenagers and families that, they wanna get into a healthier weight. So first of all, let me clarify that a regular diet is about 45 to 65% of calories from carbohydrates. When we're talking about low carb diet, that brings the percentage down to 25%. A low carb goes below that, and when we're talking about ketogenic diet, then it goes really low. That's below 20 grams of carbohydrates per day. That's when the body goes into ketosis, and the body starts to break down fat for energy instead of sugar, and that's how people- Lose weight. The American Academy of Pediatrics. For teenagers that have type 1 diabetes, going into a very strict, keto diet needs to be under medical supervision because it can lead to abnormal bone health, nutritional deficiencies and, growth problems. In teenagers that they don't have type 1 diabetes but they have pre-diabetes or they have, type 2 diabetes, the condition is a little bit different that, the dangers is not exactly the same as in type 1 diabetes. However, there is also an important risk besides those that have to do with growth and bone health and, metabolic health. There is an big concern that nobody's really talking about it. What are the psychological aspects of ketogenic diet in teenagers? So particularly, there are reports of body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, increasing anxiety, and decreased mood that are associated with restrictive dieting, and that rules applies for extreme diets like extreme low caloric diets. That rule also applies with keto diet because it's restricting significantly the carbohydrates. So now teenage years is very sensitive period and teenagers have stress of school, stress of their body changing, stress of their emotions going up and down, stress of the hormones going up and down, and then on top of that, you add the stress of a diet that is very restrictive, is like 20, carbs of carbohydrates. And that stress of puberty can be exacerbated by any extreme diet, particularly if it's low carb or low calories, if it's extreme, that adds a new problem. And we don't want these problems to happen because these problems can continue in adulthood. Like teenagers can continue to have body image issues, they can continue to have eating disorders in adulthood and, they instead of enjoying their youth and their adolescent years, they spend a lot of time under a lot of stress. That's why when I work with teens that wanna get into a healthy weight because they have insulin resistance or because they have pre-diabetes or because they just wanna be healthy, we don't talk about what we should restrict. We talk about what we can add and what are some of the healthiest swaps we can make. What's the better question instead of is keto a good diet for teens? The question we should be asking is, what can we eat instead of, those things that we are eating? And the report also says that teenagers have, 50% of their calories from, processed food and added sugars. And not only that, they don't reach the recommendations about the daily fiber intake. So what do I see on a typical day of a teenager? Like they wake up, they're late for school because they, slept late at night. They don't eat breakfast. They go to school. Sometimes they skip lunch at school or they can have pizza or they can have burgers or they can have, cheese sandwich. Then they come home around 3:00, they're starving, they eat chips, they eat granola bars, they eat something that they find. Then they rush to go to, their sports, their other activities or they do homework. They're very stressed. They have dinner, then they have more snacks after dinner and in between they also have sugary drinks. They can have, sodas or teas or energy drinks, sport drinks that have also a lot of sugar. So not all carbs are the same. There are carbs in lentils, there are carbs in Greek yogurt, but they're not the same carbs and they don't have the same effect as the carbs that you have in a bag of chips. And this is a realization that we have to make. The recommendation is not to eliminate carbohydrates. The recommendation is to eliminate the bad type of carbohydrates, once you understand the type of processed food and sugar versus having healthier carbs, it makes a huge difference. And that is also why I want to give you today the four things that you can do instead of trying any type of elimination diet. Number one is remove sugary drinks. Now, there is consistent evidence from research that soda and juice, sport drinks, fancy coffee drinks from Starbucks and all other places. If you can just remove those sugary drinks and replace them with, water. What's the best drink? It's water. You will avoid all this pure sugar from those drinks with water, then that would give you a great, start. Now, the second thing I would recommend is avoid processed carbohydrates. I'm not saying not have carbohydrates. I'm saying don't have chips, crackers, packaged snacks, fast food, And again, I'm not saying never to have them, but restrict how frequently you get those foods have more grains. Like, you can have lentils, you can have peas, you can have Greek yogurt, right? So have carbohydrates from unprocessed real food. Like, fruits have carbohydrates, blueberries have carbohydrates, strawberries have carbohydrates, bananas have carbohydrates, but it's not the same type as having chips. The third thing I would recommend, is to add some protein. Adding a protein along with the carbohydrates helps this surge of insulin. It can blend that surge and can also make you feel fuller for a longer period. The same thing you can achieve with number four, which is to add more fiber, more fruits and vegetables. That's, one of the most helpful things you can do in your diet. So instead of, minimizing the carbohydrates to less than 20 grams per day in teenagers, I would recommend doing those four things and doing them consistently. You're going to see improvement in insulin resistance without the adverse effect in psychology, without the adverse effect of extreme restrictive diet. And that's exactly what I do in my LIFT program, and that's exactly why I designed that program, because that's, a story I kept hearing again and again, and I felt like all these families and all these teenagers needed some guidance. They needed to start from somewhere. When we start to make those changes, we start small. We start by small habits, and then we start building on them, slowly over time. You're not gonna make 100 changes in a week, right? But start by making one change every day. And one change over time, like, in a year, that's 365 changes, right? That adds up if you do it gradually. So here's my take-home message for you. Identify two or three changes that will have the most impact to you. You can get some ideas from the four rules I gave you earlier, like processed food, sugary drinks, adding more, fiber to your meals and, eliminating those unhealthy carbs. That would help you start building healthier habits. So that's all I had for you for today. If you, enjoyed this podcast, I would appreciate if you can leave me a review. And if you're watching on, YouTube, don't forget to like and subscribe, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.