Raising Healthy Kids In A Toxic World

Screens at bedtime, “healthy” snacks that are anything but, and kids who seem wired, tired, and endlessly hungry, none of it feels simple. We get real about what it takes to raise healthy kids in a fast-paced world, and why the foundations of child development still come down to basics: whole foods, protected sleep, and a lower toxic load at home.

We connect the dots between processed ingredients, inflammation, and the signals children’s bodies send early, from acne and eczema to cravings and mood shifts. We also talk about why many parents feel stuck: nutrition education is not taught the way it should be, labels are confusing, and modern life normalizes constant chemical exposure. Our take is clear and practical: reduce what burdens the body, support detox pathways, and stop assuming that persistent symptoms are “just genetics” or something to mask.

Sleep and circadian rhythm get a spotlight too, including how screens, sugar, caffeine habits, and quick fixes like melatonin can backfire. We share an eye-opening idea about the last two hours of sleep and why cutting them short may erase much of the most restorative rest, especially for kids and teens.

We end with a sanity-saving approach: make changes without deprivation. Think satisfying whole-food swaps, natural sugars like fruit and honey, and a home setup that lowers cravings instead of fighting them. If you want actionable guidance on kids nutrition, sleep health, and building healthier routines without fear, press play, then subscribe, share with a parent friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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Transcript

Sponsor Message And Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:04

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Simple Foundations For Healthy Kids

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Raising healthy kids today means navigating screens, stress, food choices, and a fast-paced world, but the foundations of development are still beautifully simple. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer with Marissa Parchman, the founder of Timeless Skin and Wellness. Marissa, it's always great to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Hi, Julie. Yes, thank you so much. It's so nice to see you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Yeah, it's great to see you. And if we could continue on that topic that we just spoke about in episode 14, about um, how do we set up kids for a healthy development in the age we live in? You mentioned some great points about food choices and screen time. I mean, what else do you think?

Chemicals And Detox Burden

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, I honestly think this is the most important question that everybody needs to be thinking about. And it really comes back to the education of the parents and really wanting the knowledge and wanting to feel better and wanting to understand how the body works as a whole. And I've said this before: we have been deprived as a culture of understanding how our bodies work. And they make it seem so complicated. And don't get me wrong, there are a lot of cases where people have diagnosed that are clearly way out of my scope. Um, but I look at the typical victims of the US medical system. And these people are people with PCOS, people who have severe, severe acne, people who can't get pregnant, um, men who are infertile. There is a huge problem with young individuals and getting colon cancer. And everybody thinks, oh my God, what's going on? There's a huge rise in autism. Um, I'm not here to tell anybody what causes anything, but I am here to make sure that people understand that we are not supposed to consume chemicals. We are not supposed to have a lifestyle where we're we are being exposed to more chemicals than we are foods. And people are just so uneducated when it comes to what makes us thrive as a human and what burdens our system. And the only way for us to understand these subjects, unfortunately, is to get hungry enough for the information and find it because the information is out there, but it's not being taught in schools. And I wish it was. Um, long term, I have a dream to be able to create a curriculum to put into schools about nutrition and our body's detox systems. And we need to be looking at our detox system as the most important system in our body. And that starts as a very young child. We are humans and our body is remarkable. It will show us signs that something is imbalanced. Again, unfortunately, we have not been trained on what that means. And we don't live in a world of Eastern medicine, but we need to. We need to adopt that culture and adopt that mindset more because we start to

Processed Foods Start Too Early

SPEAKER_00 3:32

see these imbalances in children. Acne is a great example. Acne is a precursor for so many other issues long term. And cystic acne is the body just screaming for help. And so many of us have been told, oh, well, it's genetic, or you know, your your mom had acne, or they'll ask you, did your mom have acne? And I'm like, looking back at what I didn't know when I was struggling with such severe skin conditions, I realize how lost everybody is. You know, I was so, so lost. And people looked at me and told me, oh, you're allergic to gluten, you're allergic to dairy, you're allergic to corn. And I was like, oh my God, they figured it out. Oh my God, they figured it out. And then I was on this new, you know, mission to change my diet. And when I finally started to understand that my body was overburdened with toxins, end of story. My body just wanted a break, a very long break, because once you have skin conditions, your body needs to heal. And that can take a very long time. So it's a one to two year journey. And then when you're healed, you don't go back to eating Taco Bell every day, you know? And unfortunately, we're consuming so many toxic ingredients that are hidden in healthy food alternatives. So it doesn't have to be Taco Bell. Um, my biggest challenge with my biggest challenge clients are clients who think they're eating healthy and they don't understand that they're completely poisoning themselves. And that's exactly what I was doing. And then looking back at how I was raised and the processed foods we allowed in my house, and my mother cooked a lot. You know, on the weekends we were barbecuing meat and we were eating meat and potatoes and corn. And I recall a lot of great memories eating whole foods. And I also recall eating a lot of toaster strudels and ramen noodles and, you know, microwave meals and just easy things that you fill your house with when you have three teenagers. And unfortunately, the problem doesn't start when they're teenagers, it's starting at a much younger age when we're feeding them Cheerios, which is white flour, processed sugar, and seed oils. And I mean, we're giving it to our one-year-old, and it's literally they're inflammatory ingredients. End of story. Like people can argue it however they want, but if you're shopping at the grocery store and that's where you're getting all of your food, you are consuming a lot more inflammatory ingredients than you think. And it's starting at such a young age. So education, wanting the knowledge, wanting to make the changes, not making excuses. And again, going back to it being more expensive, I have so much empathy for the world that we live in and people that don't have access to better options. But the fact of the matter is, so many people have the knowledge and choose not to make better choices for their children.

Sleep, Screens, And Circadian Rhythm

SPEAKER_02 6:12

And could you also expand on something you touched on in the last episode? And that's the importance of sleep and the impact of the circadian rhythm.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Oh, yes. This is something that I'm actually learning a lot about right now. Um I think it ties into just all of the things. You know, you have a kid that's hyped up on sugar, and then you wonder why they're not sleeping, and you take them to the doctor and they say to give them melatonin, it's like you're disrupting this child's sleep, and then you're waking them up and putting them on a sugar high. So sleep is so important, and shh and sleep should be naturally induced. And screens are, you know, a huge problem. And I'm an adult, I can make the conscious decision to be on a screen, I can make the conscious decision to turn my screen off. And these children can't make that conscious decision because they're literally addicted. It's a drug. It's like it's crazy what it does to these little developing brains. And I don't know enough to fully speak on that, but I have a lot of thoughts in my head right now because I'm reading a book about this subject specifically. And it's just honestly making me look at even my habits and my patterns and how I can improve my sleep. And as I, you know, use my own body as a little science experiment, um, I start to realize that it's much more simple than we've been taught. It's much more simple than all of us have made it out to be. You know, we shouldn't be eating sugar and drinking energy drinks and then wondering why we're not sleeping. And when we sleep, our body is growing, our body's rejuvenating, our body is doing all of the things that we need to recover when we're sleeping. And there's like over a hundred diagnosable sleep conditions, and over 50% of, I don't know if it's I think the US population struggles with a sleep disorder. And when I heard that, I was like, okay, 50% of people, I guess that count is kind of sounds like a lot. I know a lot of people who don't sleep well. So when I heard 50%, I wasn't that surprised. But then I started to think, well, 50% of the population, 50% of that is probably children. So think of how many children and adolescents are not sleeping well, and then they're being woken up in the morning and sent to school, which is a whole nother conversation. Um, but yeah, we're just unfortunately we've adopted all of these habits that are not serving us from a metabolic perspective. And I very much am at a place in my life where I want to metabolically thrive and I don't like feeling like crap and I don't like looking like crap. And I know if I don't get the sleep that I need, maybe one night I can sacrifice it. Um, I also don't consume alcohol. So that's huge. If I miss a little bit of sleep, I'm much more functional than I used to be when I missed a little sleep and woke up after, you know, a bottle of wine. Um, so the book I'm reading mentioned that we get most of our quality sleep in the last two hours of our sleep. So if you're waking somebody up, say your child's up until 10 o'clock and you go to bed at eight o'clock because you don't even know what they're doing, maybe they're up till midnight. And then you wake them up two hours early, you think, oh, well, they just lost, you know, 20% of their sleep. If we're sleeping eight hours, you skip two hours, whatever. It's not that big of a deal. But you're actually missing 90% of your quality sleep. So if you wake up two hours early or for whatever reason are sacrificing two hours of sleep, then you're actually missing 90% of your quality sleep, which I thought was really eye-opening and interesting. Like I do not like how I feel when I don't get optimal sleep. And I've always been really great at sleeping. I go to sleep really easy at night. And for the most part, I sleep through the night, but now I'm having a few challenges with my sleep patterns. And I don't know. I think it's probably the sugar I eat, and it's probably the caffeine I drink, and it's probably, you know, all the other negative things that I am constantly trying to make sure I'm doing less and less of just to live a little more of a disciplined lifestyle, really.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, and um, I mean, kudos to you for like cutting out the alcohol and the cutting down the caffeine, because those are definitely difficult ones to eliminate.

Helping Kids Change Without Deprivation

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Um, and then like a last question for you for kids, you know, how do we, you know, help kids without um having them feel the type of stress that um, oh my God, I have to make certain changes quickly. And um, you know, reducing overall stress in the home, like how can we help kids and not make it like scary or like, oh my gosh, I have to change my entire life? Totally.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

This is a very important question. Um, I tell all of my clients, I do not want anybody to feel deprived. That's what we do not want to feel is deprived. If we are doing a food sensitivity test for whatever reason and a lot of foods come up that somebody can't eat, that may be a different story. If you're dealing with very severe eczema and a child, then uh you might end up take doing a food sensitivity test and having to avoid a lot of things. So for the most part, the things that we are avoiding are anything that's not a whole food. Um, some things we recommend avoiding, like spicy foods and things like that, that could be triggers. But for the most part, we're really just taking out the number one step is like taking out anything that's not a whole food. And we can literally eat everything. Like when I think of the things that I used to deprive myself from when I stopped eating gluten, like I couldn't eat. There were so many things I couldn't eat. Like you can't find certain things gluten-free at a restaurant. Um, but now looking at my life, when I now looking at my life from a perspective of understanding our detox pathways and understanding that my body was so overburdened and understanding that when I go to a restaurant and I eat a hamburger with all the sauces and all the things and French fries, that is a completely different meal than if I make a hamburger at my house with all of the whole food, consciously purchased things that I buy, for example, my bread. It comes from a subscription. I don't have to worry about what's in my bread. If you go to a restaurant, there's probably 30 ingredients in the bread alone. And then you add in all the additives in the ketchup, we get organic ketchup. You know, it's not gonna have 10 of the additional added sugars and preservatives that something at a restaurant's gonna have. So people don't realize that. Like if I make a meal at my house, I make everything. I'm a chef, I love to cook, I make gourmet pastas, I make pizza, and these things are full of nutrient-dense ingredients and we don't deprive ourselves in any regard. The only thing that makes us feel like crap is when we're like, oh, we're gonna buy this pre-seasoned meat or we're gonna buy this meat at Hmart that's already soaked in all this sauce and it's so delicious. And from time to time we do that. And then it never fails that I personally don't feel great and I struggle with gut issues. I struggle with inflammation, and I'm always trying to, you know, mitigate that. But the fact of the matter is, is we're exposed to so many things. And the number one most important thing is taking it back to the basics and not depriving yourself. If you want something sweet, make sure you keep those sweet options in your house. Like we consume sugar, we have yogurt bowls that are covered in honey and toasted coconut flakes and cinnamon and berries, and sometimes we freeze the berries and, you know, we definitely buy things with sugar. But if we deprived ourselves, we would end up at the gas station buying all the bad things, you know? Like chips, that's a really hard one. And when people like chips, I'm like, okay, these are your options. These are your options. You don't have a lot of options, but we shouldn't need a lot of options. Like people just get bored. Why? Because they're addicted to processed food and processed ingredients. End of story. And once you start to change the patterns, again, every situation is unique to itself. And in a case, you're removing almost the entire diet that can be challenging for a child, but making sure that there are things that you're not depriving the child. And natural sugars is huge. Kids love natural sugar and they're not gonna notice the difference. And as you supplement them with natural sugar, after two, three, four weeks, you're gonna see the difference in your child's behavior and your child's cravings for the sugar because the cravings come from the processed sugar. And you just don't have those natural cravings when you're not eating processed sugar. And it's not as bad for you. So eat the sugar, eat the fruit, eat the honey, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

I like that. That's a fun way to end, I think, this podcast because now we know we don't, like you said, we don't have to deprive ourselves but try to stick to the basics. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Well, Marissa, thank you so much for sharing such grounded practical guidance. Um, it seems like it's doable. So thank you again. And we're excited to see you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yes, I look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks, Julie.

How To Book A Consultation

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Invest in the best version of yourself. Call us today at 303-800-1821. Or timeless SFW dot com to schedule a consultation. Discover what it means.