Approaching Health Conversations with Kids: Expert Tips from Pediatrician Dr. Jane Roberts

There’s no denying that obesity among children is on the rise. But we also know what a sensitive subject weight can be–and one that many parents are reluctant to broach. Do you mention their tightening waistband and risk hurting their feelings? Or do you choose to stay quiet and risk causing even more damage in the long run by not addressing the issue?

As parents, it’s difficult to know how we can support children who are struggling with their relationship with food and their bodies, especially when they are living in a larger body. I recently had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Jane Roberts MD, a pediatrician in Canada who navigates this terrain both in her practice and at home with her own children.

In this episode, we dig into the best ways to approach this topic with your children, and the practical steps you can take to introduce healthier eating habits and a more active lifestyle.

References

Ep. 3: Understanding Childhood Obesity with Dr. Tami Hannon

Audio Stamps

01:14 - Dr. Jane Roberts tells us about the people she helps and how she helps them.

03:56 - Dr. Rentea asks how Dr. Roberts frames the conversation when families first come into her practice. 

05:42 - Dr. Roberts explains why she focuses less on weight and more on the genetics of obesity when working with parents.

10:45 - Dr. Roberts shares her top three things that you can do at home to help support a child who may be struggling with their weight management.

15:08 - We learn when kids start to gain awareness about issues related to their body, food, and weight.

19:15 - Dr. Roberts shares the direction she gives to parents when it comes to looking at resources online.

24:20 - Dr. Rentea and Dr. Roberts discuss the importance of family role modeling in supporting kids to make healthy decisions.

28:19 - We hear Dr. Roberts’ take on movement for kids and where the focus should lie.

Quotes

“When parents understand that weight is not our only focus and your genetics are the strongest thing that is probably causing this, it really sets the stage for them to start afresh in a lot of cases with what their expectation is for our clinic.” - Dr. Roberts

“You have to understand that you come from your genetics. You can't run away from your genetics. You can't run away from your risk of obesity. Just like you can't run away from your risk of diabetes.” - Dr. Roberts

“If you have food in your house that is a variety, so you have the healthy foods and you have the ‘sometimes’ foods, then it helps kids make choices.” - Dr. Roberts

“I don't expect you to be over scheduling your children for three activities every night. I do not expect any radical change. I always say, ‘What do you enjoy?’ Just start with that.” - Dr. Roberts

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Transcript

0:28

We have the absolute amazing Dr. Jane Roberts, and I'm going to hand over the microphone in a second for here for her to introduce herself. But real quick, if you are new to this podcast, to this program, we are talking today specifically in the pediatric realm. So a question that a patient asked me the other day, and I just love that this patient asked this, a patient said, Hey, you know, this person has two children at home and one has no weight struggle. And this patient is seeing that one of their children is really struggling in this realm. And so they said, do you have advice for me with this? And I had some thoughts, but I thought who better to ask than someone that is helping in this area all day long. Dr. Jane, can we start out with you introducing yourself and just telling people who you help, how you help them, and then we're going to get into tips and tricks for parents. Dr. Sure. Well, first of all, I'm very happy to be here. I listen to your podcast regularly and I think you're doing great things in the world of overweight and obesity and it's making me really happy to be here today. So thank you for having me. I am a general pediatrician in Canada. I work in the greater Toronto area. I have a long personal history with overweight and obesity. I also have a boy and a girl who live in my house with me who happen to be my children who are also in the sort of young, but category of, you know, genetic body shape and being in a slightly bigger body. And so I'm navigating not only with my patients, but I'm also navigating at home how to deal with that. And it, it just hits a bit differently. Depending on the different environment. So in my regular work day, I do both general hospital based pediatrics. So I'm working with traditional kids who are get sick and then get better. And, but then I also am part of a lifestyle clinic. So we call it a lifestyle clinic on purpose. We don't call it an obesity clinic. We don't call it an overweight clinic. We don't call it a, we don't even call it a lipid clinic. We just say lifestyle. And although in Canada, the resources are a little bit different depending, cause it's socialized health care. We have, funding right now for, a pediatrician or a pediatric endocrinologist, a dietitian, and a social worker. And the social worker is very new. And so I work closely with that team, with our families. who are coming to us if they've been identified as having overweighted obesity BMI. That's, that's really the main criteria. We also have another stream, that is more, kids who haven't identified high risk. So if their lipids are, abnormal or if they have if they're borderline diabetic, those kids, and then there's another stream, which I don't take care of as much who are the type two diabetes, because that's just been an explosion in the younger age group. So I do that a couple of times a month. It's a great clinic. It's a very near and dear to my heart clinic. And so it's again hits differently for me. But it's something that I've come into in the last three, four years. And it's, it's been an amazing addition to my practice. First of all, can we, you said so many amazing things, but it, this is so different the team you're describing where you are compared to the type of teams that I hear in the pediatric obesity practices here. And I agree with you. I hate the term obesity when we're relating to kids because we know that it can be a medical condition, but I think that kids particularly take on. These terms and classifications in a really hard way I just really like the way that that you guys have phrased that differently because it feels like it would hit home in a different way. Can you tell me in general when people come into your practice, when families come in, what do you tell the parents, the child, like, how do you frame that conversation with them? It's a good question. And I think I think I might do things slightly differently than my endocrinology colleagues because because I'm so personally invested in this area. And so I have always from the beginning really been very plain speaking. I'm not going to speak differently to the kids to the adults. I don't do that in my practice anyway, but I really frame it as. This is not a weight loss clinic. I'm sorry if that disappoints you because I do have some parents who kind of wish that there was a magic bullet that we were all hiding and we were going to give it to them. I just say this is a clinic about learning about you and your body type and what makes your body feel good and how we can fuel your body properly and move your body properly and help you to just be the healthiest kid so that you can be the healthiest adult. We know that kids who carry extra weight, kids who have any lipid issues, kids who are at risk for type 2 diabetes or have type 2 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, that those kids are going to go on into the adult years in a potentially less, less healthy place if they haven't had things addressed. Early enough and that if you're an 18 year old who's had flora type two untreated diabetes for five years, you know, that's a very different place than if you're a 10 year old who gets caught early. And, and at least we've helped you to have that learning and have that, that understanding and try to be doing something. Oh, that's so good. I like this language. Just learning about your body type, learning about what can feel you very different than we're going to help you lose weight. So now that they know that kind of, what do you, how do you frame it to patients that they, that not the patients, but the parents of sort of how they can handle things at home. Cause I think that's what everyone's looking for is like, tell me how I might not harm my child. I feel like that's always the biggest question. One of the main sort of messages that I really want my patients to hear is that weight is not important. I know that sounds like, I don't know, even condescending sometimes, but, but if weight is not important, I do not care how much you weigh. I will have to use that as a measure because we don't have fancy body composition, you know, ways to measure, but I will have to use it. I will look at it in More of a pediatric focus, meaning as you grow, you have to gain weight. You cannot grow height without gaining weight. I do not expect your child to stop gaining weight. I hope their weight gain slows down. That's one of the things I'm going to be looking for. But I'm never going to be celebrating just weight. So when they come to me and they sort of say, how do I get my kids to lose weight? And I say that you can already see the wheels in their head starting to turn. And sometimes that's not what they wanted to hear. And I have to convince them a little bit more. But I'll say, so we're not going to talk about weight. I may not even review the weight with you. I might review the growth charts to show you how much you've grown taller and appropriate things like that, but we're not going to talk about weight. And then the second thing is that I'm also, I have a really big focus on the genetics of obesity. Look at the people around you. Look at the people in your house. You are not going to be a blue egg. If your parents are green eggs and yellow eggs, right? Oh, that one. No, they will actually. But, but you have to understand that you come from your genetics. You can't run away from your genetics. You can't run away from your risk of obesity. Just like you can't run away from your risk of diabetes. So if we know that we are working with a different set of rules than the naturally super skinny people who look like they eat McDonald's every day and, and don't put on any weight, they have their own set of issues and their own genetics to deal with. So when parents understand weight is not our only focus and your genetics are the strongest thing. That that is probably causing this. It really sets the stage for them to start afresh in a lot of cases with what their expectation is for our clinic. And I have to say we have a very high no show rate because not many people want to talk about this. Right? Not many families know how they're going to deal with this. Lots of them say, Oh, that's a great idea. We're going to do that. And then their appointment day comes and then they don't show up. And that's a really hard thing for me because I know that we can help. They, they just don't know yet. I haven't had time to give them, you know, like this isn't going to be high pressure. So, so those are the two main things at the beginning that I was talking about. It's interesting. I know we're digressing a bit, but it's related to what you just said. So I just made a video on this the other day online, how, so someone made a really mean comment to me online, and she was actually a pediatric nurse. And I need this, what, what I was really feeding off of, and this is, I think maybe some of your patients aren't showing up. It's like you already have this anticipatory dread of the shame that's coming at you. You're sitting there thinking that that's all coming at you, and it might not. And so I think that people have experienced so much of that. And think about even if you're in a clinic where it's like, we're going to weigh you every month and think about as a kid, how that starts to imprint on you. So the fact that you don't even do that, like, they don't know, hopefully some of your future patients are going to hear and they're going to know that it's coming. And, and I think, having Grown up in a bigger body and having had the absolute most well meaning family who stressed about my weight and talked about my weight and made me eat differently than my peers and my brother and, you know, that Is still so easy to access in my brain all the time. So when I see parents sitting there, I, I can picture them and I, and, and, you know, I'm not always correct. Like, you know, you never know how enlightened or how much people have looked into this, but knowing that they could. be incredibly well meaning, but scarring their child by mistake versus incredibly well meaning and haven't talked about it and they're here and they're just like, I didn't know what to say anything. I'm like, Oh, that's a good way to do it. Let me, because I have some good things to say. And that I think allows. Everybody, no matter where you're coming from, when you start with me, you're, you have the comfort. My hope is you have the comfort from the first meeting going forward so that you can ask those tough questions and little, little things creep back in. Right. The question always, like you can't, you can't just let go all of your biases about weight. It's, it's years and years and years of therapy before you can actually do that. But when it's your kids. You're just so much more emotionally invested. I know that the vast majority of my families are coming from such a heartfelt place, but it's really challenging. And that's why I think, I think it's important that we're talking about this today, right? Like this is such an important area to talk. Okay, so let's say someone, they think that their child is going through some things, maybe even the kids getting bullied at school or different things are happening. So what are kind of the top three things? That you would say that that they can do at home to help support this kid and how they're doing things. That's a really good question. So definitely taking weight comments and weight talk and weighing at home. Like I would say, get rid of the scale. Anything that has to do with that metric just needs to go. And I'll do that in the clinic and we'll talk about it as much as I think it's important, but very little and just let it go. The second thing is really looking at food as fuel. And this is something that, you know, if you think about diet culture that I grew up in and the idea of restricting and restricting calories and taking things away and you can't have that and, you know, that Is traumatizing as a kid, you know, to, to be constantly living that stress. And then, and then you develop this, like, wait, should I eat it? And the fear about food and so many emotions. So what I always tell parents is I am not going to tell you to go low carb. I am not going to tell you that you can't have anything. I'm really going to advise you that every time your child sits down to eat, they need to have fuel in front of them. And so if they want to have chips. I don't mind. Go for it. Have some potato chips, right? Maybe not a whole bag. Maybe what you do is you grab a bowl, portion it out. You got chips on one side and maybe you have a Greek yogurt dip or you have a cheese string or you have, you know, cottage cheese if your kids will eat it. And so what you're doing is you're pairing protein with every meal. I like to make it very simple for my patients. The dietician obviously goes into much more detail, but I find that a lot of families are overwhelmed. And then feel guilty. And I, the last thing I want you to do is come to an appointment, feeling guilty. If you've done nothing that I've suggested since the last appointment, at least you showed up and we will just say it again. I will never try to make you feel bad for not following through because we are all just doing our best. So if you can, if you can add to your, what your child's eating in a protein, higher protein, Thoughtful way, trying to decrease, I say things in shiny packages, like if you're going to give them a muffin, that's going to be better than a chocolate chip cookie. Both of them probably have sugar in it, I don't care so much, let the kid have something fun, but with that cookie, could you also have a cheese string? Yogurt, you know, something with higher protein and that if I really break it down like that, I can see people's emotions or they're just, they're like, worry about taking it. I can see them kind of deflate a little bit in a good way, but it just seems, oh, okay, that's actually nuts. I think I could probably do that, you know, and then I feel, okay, we've got something we can work with. Totally. This is so good. You know, when you, when you're talking about pairing things, like I've had to do is I have a four, almost five year old. All he wants are the spicy chips. Like, look in the pantry. He's like, spicy chips up there. And it's exactly like you said. So I'm like, look, we're gonna, we're gonna put some carrots, some ranch dip of this and that. And then of course he's going to eat those chips. But like you said, I feel like he then some of that other stuff makes its way in. Right. So I love that. Just almost like providing more stuff. So you're not saying that they can't have anything. You're not like singling the kid out. Like, well, you can have the chips, the thin one and not the other person, like this constant pairing people against each other. Okay. So just to kind of recap here, so basically parents. Great idea to just not talk about wait period because it's not leading to anything great doing it and then kind of points two and three that not putting kids in an overly restricted environment. It's fine. If some of those things are there. I mean, I feel like it's kind of quite common at this point. Like, it's very hard to have a house that has like nothing in it. And I think to just to add to that, remembering that you're, that these kids are going to be going to other people's houses where there's a very different. And so if your kids never have a sugary thing, never have something that we would consider a treat things that I call sometimes foods, not everyday foods. If they never have exposure to them, they are going to overeat their faces off when they go to their friend's house. And that's not appropriate either, right. To be that kid who's like, it's like starvation almost, even though, you know, they're well fed. So to me. You have to be happy with white feeding them so you can feed them organic cane sugar, you know, muffins or whatever. Like you can be as, as particular as you want about that, but you have to give them the fun foods or the sometimes foods sometimes so that they're not just, it's almost like restrict binge, restrict binge. Right. And we don't want kids. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So good. And then the third one that you had on your, the. Kind of with really fueling the body and really bringing in the good foods and the variety of foods and things like that. Do kids have any awareness? Like when do you find that the kids actually are aware of what's going on? Like how old are they when they're starting to ask you questions and like care about this stuff? That's a good question. So I don't like to generalize by gender, but I think that in general society and parents and grandparents and siblings maybe are a bit harder on girls who are overweight. And so I finding that girls come with a bit more emotional. baggage for lack of a better word already with their weight. And so they are, they do tend to be a little bit younger, but now, and especially with social media influence, I am seeing younger boys who are having, you know, 10 years ago, I, I wouldn't have had a 12, even a 13 year old, like care so much, but I'm starting to see that. And so in some ways it's good because they're sort of listening and, you know, they're not. 16, and I have to try to get their attention. You know, I can get their attention a little bit younger and maybe put some of the ideas in place before that. But I think that, you know, definitely by grade nine, everybody, even the boys are, are, are thinking about it and wondering about it. But that's where a lot of the emotional baggage has really been already laid out, you know, so I really like working with the like, five, six, seven year olds, because And they tend to just, like, they're, like, the five, six, seven year olds who get to me are already really carrying extra weight. Like, it takes a lot for a primary care provider to send me that young a kid. Unfortunately, I'd love to have them earlier, but those are the kids where we can actually get this food, food as fuel thing. I think a little bit. Better that because they're still in that age where you can be like, you need to eat your green beans, you know, and you're like, you need to eat your Greek yogurt. Like they're still a little bit okay with being kind of told what to eat. Whereas like the eight, nine, 10 year olds are a bit already like, I really like my cookies. Like, don't you dare mess with those. Right. And then the teenagers, it's more like, what do I do to gain muscle mass? And it's a little bit more of a shift. So very accurately. And so because of that, it also changes a little bit the way that I come at it. I find that with my teenagers, we have a lot of mental health struggles. And so my 14, 15, 16 year olds, you know, this is where I hope the social worker comes in. Cause I just don't have time to spend an hour with them. I would love to, but I think there's a lot of mental health challenges and this is where, you know, Bye. Bye. The support that they get with respect to their bodies from me, I see it as just probably not a common type of support that they get in their lives because they can see how sad they are about it already. And so I just hope that one person, if it's me, or hopefully their parents here too, that they get that support and that love and that. beauty at any size. And I really try to emphasize that. But it's tough because I'm up against millions of TikTok videos every day, right? And I hope that they find good TikTok videos, but I don't know what they're watching. So, so that's the challenge when they get older. Oh, true. I remember this is a slight sidebar, but it's relevant. There was, when I was growing up, I followed this plus size YouTuber. And, still follow her, but, and I probably told you this story one time, but I can't stop telling the story, but I always looked up to this girl because I thought, you know, she's body positive and look, she's my size and she's wearing these clothes. And then it turned out that she'd actually had all these surgical procedures and never told anyone. So she got like a procedure to get rid of fat in this area of the neck. And then she had a tummy tuck and she did all these things and she was never forthright about it until years later. And I remember. being so hurt by that because I was really trying to find people that had similar bodies and not shame myself. And even, you know what I mean, even though I thought I was in something positive, it wasn't anyway. So one question I have for you, cause this has to be something you think about with people. Do you have resources that you recommend that like either books that the parents could read or. programs that the kids can do. I mean, beyond just people actually getting therapy and getting help with this and seeing a dietician and things like that, that your program offers, but is there anything at home that people can do in addition? It's a, it's a good question. I struggle a little bit. With personal recommendations, right? So because we're a university funded program, I don't want to endorse, I'm not getting paid by a drug company. I'm not like I have no, and so it is a bit of a slippery slope. And, and as a group, we tend to try to give resources that we're all giving so that it's, it's not approved, but kind of approved and thoughtful, but I do give them direction. So I say. When you're looking at resources online, whether it's TikTok Snapchat or whatever you're doing, you want to make sure that what they're saying feels right in your body, right? That people aren't promising things that don't make sense. Try to use some of the information that I've given you about your genetics and fetus fuel and how you can't make dramatic differences to the way that you look. With, you know, like at some point, although we can gain and lose weight, our body sets and types and muscle structure and is kind of set. And so you can work on it over time, but you are not going to be dramatically different without doing dramatically. And that's like surgery or different things. Right. So be careful because if they're promising you something that sounds over and above what you think is possible, it's not possible. There are some podcasts that I've had families who are like, but come on, you gotta, you gotta tell me like, there's gotta be some. And I was like, to be very honest, Mattia, I tell them that they should listen to you because you are very strict. I feel honored. No, absolutely. So I have had some families where I write out your name and I give it to them and I say, you know, she's, she's. She's, she's thoughtful. She's smart. She walks the walk. She comes from a place of genuinely trying to help people, which is where I try to exploit. Like, that's where I hope I feel. It seems like I'm coming from because I am. And that when you have one person who you're like, that makes sense that brings true to me, that feels real to me. Then you look and see who are they following? Who are they? You know, recommending who, Oh, maybe they do a clip of someone that they're talking to. Well, maybe, maybe you go down that rabbit hole and see what they're talking about. But anytime that anyone makes you feel shame, bad guilt, or that you're missing out on some magic bullet gone, surgery really scares me in young people because I think it's becoming a little bit more mainstream to be in like cosmetic things and like even just Botox, like all these things. And I, I'm, I really think it's a very slippery slope in the pediatric population and I absolutely 100 percent do not. Wow. I guess I'm not hip to the scene. Are you telling me that, that anyone under 18 is getting Botox? It is absolutely. And I didn't know until my patients told me I'm only hip because they tell me. I always say every day we're learning, right? Like absolutely, absolutely. And a lot of, you know, makeup influencers, their whole face is frozen. Like things like that, that I just didn't know. And so I think, social media has amazing bits and pieces to it and has. Absolutely traumatizing bits and pieces to it and that we just have to be so thoughtful and as parents we have to Try to be present when our kids are using it at a young age, especially To not just put limits on it But to be aware just to be aware the things that you know My patients tell me I want to know I want to use that information for my own kids. Yeah Yeah, listen, I I love the response you gave and it's interesting because I have yet to find like The book with parenting. I mean, I read these different things about fat bias and fat shaming and, and all these different approaches, but, but no one's without their problems. Right? Same thing with me. Right? Like, I'm sure there's probably things I say where people are like, eh, a hundred percent don't agree. And I love how you're like, how do you feel internally? Because I have started to take that as my main compass for the past four or five years. And that's been the best thing. So we can say gut reaction. We can say whatever you want, but. You know, when something is triggering to you when you're like, that doesn't sound right, that feels bad in my body and to start to honor that instead of thinking always, well, this authority knows more than me. Like, what if that's not true? And what if we can stop perpetuating that one more time? So. Yeah, I just really like that you bring that up and I think it's important to empower kids. I mean, obviously I'm talking with them about body and, you know, like best body, best metabolic health, best whatever you want to call it and just optimizing you and your brain power and your, your body power. And if you really want to be an intense soccer player, like what do we need to do to fuel you to do that? If you want to be really good at math, how do we fuel your brain to do that? Right? Like it's these things in a day, what do you want to get done? Okay. How do we get that done? But if we don't have sort of general skills at weeding out the crazy messages you can hear in society, we as a population are going to be in trouble. So I hope that I'm giving them tools that they can use in, in other areas of their life too, to say, be, be picky about what you read online and about what you believe online. Any questions you have about what you see, come back and ask me. I'm totally happy to answer them. But that skill can be broadened out, you know, along all of their social influences. I think the only one thing that we didn't talk about, but I think indirectly, this is sort of implied, but it's like, I always use the phrase like more is caught than taught. I feel like with, with young kids, at least I've experienced this in my family. So I have a almost five year old and then I have stepkids that now are ages, 12 up to 16. So I've kind of like, even though I am young, I feel like I'm experienced at all. And what I've always seen is like, if we have all the stuff in the house, they're not going to be perfect, but they're much more likely to like. They'll grab the strawberries. They'll grab the apples that we have. It's just, it's abundant. You can't not eat it. I mean, it's like, it's kind of hard to miss it when 90 percent of the house is that. So yes, we still have some of that other stuff in the house, but it's almost like, it's so Normalize they see me having this stuff all the time that I feel like it's kind of crept in as an option verse, you know, that's sometimes where I wonder, is it really the work of the parents first and then the kids just going to see what they're going to see? Right? That's a good point. I wonder your thoughts on that too. So And there, and I also wanted to touch on moving your body too before we, before I forget, but one of the hardest things that I come up against is exactly that. Oh, he'll only eat bear paws. I don't know if you have bear paws in the States, but they're like cookies basically in package shiny packages, which, you know, I love. So bear paws, he'll only eat a bear paw at lunch. Okay. But where do you get the bear paw from? Okay. But so if they have it in the house, right, these, these are kids. If it's in the house, they're going to eat it. I have no problem with you having in the house, but you don't have to put it in the lunch, right? You can make it a Friday food, right? You can make it a Sunday food. You can make it a, you know, not necessarily a treat. Cause I also try to get away from like, Big sugar ticket items as the only thing that makes you happy when you've had like a good test result or whatever, like I try not to do food as, as the only reward system. But if you make it pizza Fridays and kids understand the pizzas on Fridays, then they don't ask for pizza every night. And so you don't actually have to have peace. If you have food in your house that is variety, so you have the healthy foods and you have the sometimes foods, then it helps kids make choices. If they never have any of the, of the sometimes foods, then like I said, they're going to be like lose their minds over it. But I have a huge, unfortunately, and not to bash dads at all because I love my dad and I love my husband, but dads are really not always toe in the party line. And so that is something that I have no magic wisdom about. If you have someone who sits down, does not eat a vegetable, even if it's covered in ketchup and cheese and will only eat, you know, has like lots of highly processed, high sugar, high, whatever you want to call it, what I would call sometimes foods. Every single night, it's going to be really hard to convince a kid that they shouldn't be allowed to do that too. So I do think that it's also family role modeling, walk in the walk yourself, all of that stuff, because you can't underestimate how much exactly, exactly have you said what is caught from living in your environment. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think it's, and I, and I had Dr. Tammy Hannan on before. She's a pediatric endocrinologist, a really good friend of mine. And she talked about how, yeah, you can't do things differently. So like you can't buy the Coke for yourself and be like, but you're not going to have it. It's, I mean, you can do that. It just makes a very weird dynamic going forward. Right. So it's interesting because I've often thought that me working on my health has been the best thing ever because I, yeah. I feel like, of course, I can't directly influence the outcome, but I feel like it's a big, it's a big, let's say force field around what's happening with others around me in the house. Right. I like that, that you bring that up kind of what are you doing and are you expecting the kid to do something different? I mean, this, Oh, and then tell me your thoughts on movement. Cause you were talking about moving your body. This is also something that I, I will also at some point during our first consultation say, I don't expect you to get a gym membership. I don't expect for you to be over scheduling your children for three activities every night. I do not expect, you know, any radical change. I always say, what do you enjoy? Like, I just start with that. So if kids are like, I like soccer. I'm like, great. Play soccer once a week, twice a week, five times a week. I don't care. Whatever makes you happy, right? So first, whatever makes you happy. Second, if the answer is nothing because I don't like moving my body and I don't like the feeling of gym class and I don't want to wear shorts and, you know, whatever, you sort of. Uncomfortable with moving their body feelings. They have, I just start with, I need you to think two times a week, maybe three, maybe one. Let's start with one. And I gauged their face, right? If I say three times, how about once a week? So how about on Friday nights, you walk up and down the stairs in your house for five minutes. Can you do that? Just five minutes up and down your stairs. And they're like, well, yeah, I could. And I'm like, okay, but have you ever done it? And then, and they can be like, Well, no, because someone told me to before I was like, okay, so why don't we just start with that? And why you just keep it, keep it on your phone, keep it on a piece of paper, keep somewhere. When you come back to me, I want to see how many weeks you did five minutes of walking up and down the stairs. And I'm like, but like, my dad said that I should get a gym membership and I should go like with weights and this. And I was like, I. I disagree. Like, I'm happy for you to go do that with your dad if he wants to go with you and you want to go with him and it makes you happy. Again, it needs to make you happy, but I would say you have five minutes where you're playing on your iPad, you're playing on your phone and you're doing something where you could mindlessly walk up and down the stairs for five minutes and just feel good about yourself. What do you think? And most of my patients will do that. And so then they start with five minutes and then they're like, five minutes seems short, but I got it in. So then I'll say, so don't go to 10 minutes. Just go to two days a week of five minutes. Right. Never more expectation. And because I'm setting the bar so low. And most of the time they think like, I think some of them think I'm totally crazy at first, which I think is hilarious. And it makes me laugh, but like setting a realistic movement goal, which is not high intensity sport, which is not having to go to the gym, which is not having to Buy any equipment. And if you don't have stairs in your house, walk back and forth up and down the hallway, like I don't care, but set it low. And once they start to feel, so then the next appointment I'll come back and I'll say, how did you feel? Like, how did your body feel with that, that, that movement? And they're like, well, I think it was fine. I was like, great. I'm actually not even gonna up it. You decide. Five minutes once a week, or more. Up to you. And that a lot of kids at least will be thinking about it now. Whereas they would have been playing their video games lying on the ground instead. You know, it's like, I want to go do these stairs, okay? That's the way you phrase it. I'm like, let Matina do this. Put on an audio book, put on music, whatever, like, walk up into the stairs. I mean, isn't this the way that all of us started, or am I the only unicorn? It was like walking a few minutes. It was like Like five minutes. Can we just do that? So I love you bring this up. You also brought up something. I love this, the word fun, right? What do you actually like to do? So I'm remembering when I was younger, because of course we had this where my dad would be like, let's go down and exercise. Let's this, let's that. I remember the thing I loved the most was that we had this little TV in front of the stationary bike in the, in the basement. And I would watch like a limit date. Most lowest of low reality TV and I was like, yeah, and I would be there and I'm thinking if I had done that, I think I would have stuck with it because it worked. It was fun. I remember it would be like a Friday night if I wasn't hanging out with friends and it was like, wow, if I had just been like, what is fun instead of my, my always my intention was so that we can burn the calories and lose the weight. Right. And if I'd let go of that, I think I would have stuck with it. Right. And just moved for joy and fun. I think it would have been a different trajectory. So true for me, that was high school, a treadmill and young and the restless. Yes. And I wasn't allowed to watch because my parents didn't know what I was talking about. So I would like, I can watch soap opera if I walk, but I had absolutely no intention of enjoying the walking. And that's what I want to get across to my patients. And even now, and I'm in my forties now, I finally embraced the enjoyment of exercise and it's taken me 30 years and I spent so many years doing exercise that Maybe even made me feel worse because I was so tired or so muscle burnout or so whatever for so many years because I was trying to get the calories down and this is a totally different podcast but this is where a lot of parents with young kids who are going to be listening to this and struggling with how to talk to their kids about health and bodies and all that stuff. That we're coming from a place of really having such negative emotional tags on everything. Moving our body is only about weight. Eating is only about weight. Can you imagine how hard it is to come out from underneath that? So if we can teach our kids to enjoy food, but find the good fuel, and How does that fuel make you feel? Hey, do you feel better after a big bowl of Greek yogurt with those chips? And as opposed to after the chips, right? Like chips and Greek yogurt is a great snack or Hey, we went for a family walk and watch the dog run around and go crazy. Like wasn't that fun as opposed to, Hey, like is your, did your body, you know, eat up calories? I don't care about that stuff. They only care because we tell them about it. So if we just never talk about it, they are allowed to feel the joy and keep the joy. Totally. It's funny that you bring up, so like, I think about, you know, okay, so my son loves to go to the park, right? I mean, we're in the middle of winter right now when we're recording this, but we are lucky enough right now that where we are, there's like two parks. It was like, we've never had this before. And what's funny is, like, At first I was annoyed because I'm like, oh, I'd like sit here and he's running around and I'm annoyed. And then I was like, wait, how can this be fun for both of us? And I was like, I like to get my steps in. So I'm going to walk around the little playground, right. Or actually challenge myself to go up the slide and do these things. That's funny because I'm like, again, can we come from a place of how can this be fun? How can this be, if productive for you as a good word, right. But I love to think about how different it would be if we always said to our kids, how would it be fun to move today? Or I don't know, using the word move, but like, So many things, going skating with kids, park, even if it's, all the, like, we have in Indy, there's a children's museum, there's so much walking there while you're getting to different things, and again, just no exercise, but just moving, I think the, the relationship would be so different long term, and yeah, it took me, I think only this year have I really gotten to a place of, loving movement, and then, of course, what's funny, you know, My son will do the workouts with me sometimes, and I used to think that was such a cliche, but he thinks it's fun to mimic the little strength training thing that I'm sitting there dying. But he's like, and he'll be talking back to the video. And I'm sitting there, I think it's hilarious because he thinks, and you think, oh, mommy exercises, you know, it's like, that's just normalized to them instead of, instead of something that they need to do and not us. And the power, like the first time that I ever heard my kids say to a stranger or to someone, Oh, my mommy works out all the time. I was like, Oh. They noticed and they don't know that I did only 10 minutes and not 20 minutes, right? They don't know that like that last five minutes was really sore or what they just saw it as like an activity I do and it's, little light bulb moments like that where you're like, and you know what, they're going to think that working out is normal and maybe they're going to find some type of working out that makes them happy and that's going to be what they start to do. That's the way to do it. Right. I didn't have to tell them to go move their bodies. They, they were like, Oh, I should probably move my body. Like it was, it's crazy to me that that would even be an op, like a thought for them. Cause when I was a kid, I wasn't like, Hey, I need to move my body. I'm going to go do cartwheels on the lawn. I just like doing cartwheels on the lawn. So I did cartwheels on the lawn. Right. The kids don't do a lot of that. I don't know what it's like with you guys, but like kids these days don't play outside on their own anymore. Right. We have to be with them or take them to the park or, you know, and so it's, it's a lot less random play and a lot more. I don't know, told you, tell you what to do play. And so for lack of a better way to say it. And so because it's a bit more formalized maybe, it's maybe not always as coming from like a joy seeking place. Totally. Totally. I, when we moved again, cause this was been a more recent move, it was more, I felt like I was in a movie at first because we're on this cul de sac and all the kids, like, I really feel like I'm watching a movie sometimes they all like come together in the middle and just I think that on their bikes, I'm like, Oh my God, does this, does this happen? Are we in reality? It's sort of like, I think like a military area where we are. So I think military communities are a little bit more used to this. I'm greatly generalizing right now, but, my point is, I know what you're saying. Like, we're not just like go and I'm sitting there like helicoptering watching from the window, you know, like granted he's young, but, but it's amazing. But I think the other times we're like driving to a balanced place where like, it's very intentional, the things that we're doing. But I just want to say thank you for coming on today because I really think that I got a lot of good ideas just how to what to continue to focus on with my kid with really just focusing on fuel and making it fun and just like balance, like all the things I do for myself, but continuing that same sentiment with him and almost not being so worried that I'm not doing it perfect. That's really a lot of the message that I got today. So thank you for coming on. Any last words where you're like, people need to know this? Any last comment? Yeah. You know, I'm my pleasure for being here. Absolutely. I love talking with you. I think just keep it simple. Keep it simple. Look at the plate. Teach your kids to look at the plate and say, Do I have something green or red or orange? That's your vegetable. Do I have something that's protein good? And do I have something else right? Like protein and even one cucumber, right? For kids who don't like vegetables. One cucumber is a win. Stop making the meat six. Thanks. One cucumber. And if you can just simplify it and take the pressure off of having to eat vegetables, they're going to eat more. They're going to naturally eat more. So just keep it simple. We're all doing the best we can with parenting. And you know, you were talking before about having found the parenting book. I have never found a parenting book that the entire book speaks to me. And so bits and pieces, we are all individual. You got to pick what works for you, but I'm always going to be what is simple and what feels right. And if you can focus on that, you're doing the best you can for your kids. Oh, so good. So good. All right. I'm going to leave it there and we're going to put all your information down below and just thank you for coming on today. I think we, we all learned so much. My pleasure. Absolutely.