Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1162 | SkinnyTok, the iPad Pacifier & Paula White’s New Scam

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

In today's episode, White House faith adviser and heretical prosperity gospel "preacher" Paula White is trending yet again, this time for encouraging her followers to "honor God" during Passover ... by donating upwards of $1,000 to her ministry. We have a biblical response to Paula and her message. And the kids are not all right since the new generation has absolutely fried their dopamine receptors with technology. We're not talking about teenagers; children as young as five are being handed tablets by their parents, who simply don't want to do the hard things. Lastly, we have a special guest on to discuss a new, disturbing trend on TikTok called SkinnyTok and how it is disturbingly close to the body-shaming and glorification of eating disorders that were so popular in the early 2000s. Share the Arrows 2025 is on October 11 in Dallas, Texas! Go to sharethearrows.com for tickets now! Buy Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy --- Timecodes: (01:05) Brief Share the Arrows update (02:55) Paula White is asking for money… again (18:45) Kids are getting addicted to technology (39:08) Letting kids do hard things (45:35) ‘SkinnyTok’ trend on TikTok --- Today's Sponsors: Seven Weeks - Experience the best coffee while supporting the pro-life movement with Seven Weeks Coffee; use code ALLIE at https://www.sevenweekscoffee.com to save up to 25% off your first order, plus your free limited edition Lent tote bag. Masa Chips — Go to MasaChips.com and use promo code ALLIEB for a discount on your first time order of seed oil free tortilla chips! Jase Medical — Go to Jase.com and enter code “ALLIE” at checkout for a discount on your order. A’del — Try A'del's hand-crafted, artisan, small-batch cosmetics and use promo code ALLIE 25% off your first time purchase at AdelNaturalCosmetics.com --- Links: The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/report/2025-common-sense-census-web-2.pdf --- Related Episodes: Ep 1157 | What’s God’s Will for Me? Here’s How You Know | Guest: Costi Hinn https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1157-whats-gods-will-for-me-heres-how-you-know-guest/id1359249098?i=1000699560109 Ep 1137 | Paula White & 'He Gets Us' Get Jesus Wrong https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1137-paula-white-he-gets-us-get-jesus-wrong/id1359249098?i=1000690933692 Ep 445 | Canada's 'Free' Health Care Is a Myth | Guest: Lauren Chen https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-445-canadas-free-health-care-is-a-myth-guest-lauren-chen/id1359249098?i=1000527105997 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

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That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819-39-382. Prosperity preacher and Trump advisor Paula White is added again. Oh my goodness, we've got a biblical response to her latest heresy. Also, Jonathan Haidt has been posting some very troubling statistics on social media about kids and technology use. How can we solve this problem? Because it is solvable. And then at the end of this episode, we've got a segment on a very troubling trend on TikTok called Skinny Talk. What is this and what does it mean for your daughters? We will make sure

you parents know what's up and what to do. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's good ranchers.com Code All right. Hey guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. We are almost a Friday. All right. Yesterday when I announced some of the speakers for share the Aeros, I did not know quite yet. We were almost there, but that Taylor Dukes will be added to the lineup. And so Taylor Dukes is another speaker at Share the Aeros. We're doing something new this year. We are doing a health panel where we will talk about how to live healthy lifestyles, both at home, outside of our home, not just physically, materially, but also spiritually. And how to balance that.

because that can be a whole world of legalism in itself. And yet we do understand that we are supposed to steward our bodies as dwelling places for the Holy Spirit. And so we will be having a very rich, interesting discussion about that at Share the Errors. In addition to having Elisa Childers and Katie Faust, you know those two are going to bring it. Francesca Battistelli is going to be leading us in worship yet again. And we also have some other speakers we haven't announced. Also, Ginger Volo will be on stage. and she will be giving a powerful testimony too.

So apologetics, theology, training. There will be motherhood conversation. Those are the speakers we haven't announced quite yet. And just so much. I'm so excited. So make sure you go to share the aeros.com and get your tickets if you have not already. All right. Got quite a few things to talk about today.

We've got a new fun segment at the end with one of the Gen Z people that work on the show or like work on other shows here at blaze tv and she is awesome she's going to be lending her insight into this tic-tok trend that we really need to know about especially as parents but first let's talk some theology this is about paula white paula white is a spiritual advisor to president trump she is now the white house faith office uh white house faith office leader we did a whole episode on Paula White. You can go back and listen to that. Why I think she's extremely problematic, why I'm concerned about her having this kind of position of influence, even while, of course, I continue to hope that the White House is successful in all of its good endeavors.

And any good goal that even her faith office has that actually is in alignment with scripture, I hope they're effective in accomplishing that. But more than anything, I want Paula White to repent of the false prosperity gospel that she not only believes herself, but also that she has propagated to millions of people around the world for many years. And most recently, she did some kind of special or commercial where she encourages her viewers to quote unquote honor God during Passover and in return. turn, they can expect seven special blessings from God, including a personal angel, physical healing, and prosperity. And then later in her sermon, and this is very common with these prosperity preachers, she says, you should offer $1,000 to me and to my ministry to Paula White and what she is in charge of. And she indicates, seems to indicate that these offerings will contribute to the blessing. So here is a clip from her latest commercial special, SOT 1.

And I believe that when you honor God on Passover, starting on April 12th at sundown through Good Friday on the 18th and concluding on Easter Sunday, you can receive these seven supernatural blessings for you and your house. According to Exodus 23, God will assign an angel to you. He'll be an enemy to your enemies. He'll give you prosperity. he'll take sickness away from you. He will give you long life. He'll bring increase in inheritance, and he'll give a special year of blessing. For your special Passover offering of $1,000 or more,

as the Holy Spirit leads, you will also receive the beautiful 10-inch Waterford Crystal Cross. So this was on her YouTube channel, and you might laugh at this, and you might think, how could anyone buy into something so gimmicky? But I promise you have people, in your life, especially older people who have dwindling savings, but who believe this, that if they sow a seed of faith, that's often the language used, then God will repay them with some kind of blessing, whether it's a, you know, relationship help, or whether it's a promotion at work, or whether it's physical healing from one of their ailments. And they put their hope in this, that God is some kind of genie that if I do this, he will do this. And she claims to be getting this idea

from Exodus 23. Exodus 23 is a passage in which Moses is giving instruction and laws to the Israelites about their conduct, about how they are to honor the Sabbath, how they are to celebrate in their festivals. He is also telling them about God's promise. to help conquer Canaan. Behold, I sent an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. That's verse 20 of chapter 23. And God goes on to say through Moses,

you shall serve the Lord your God and he will bless your bread and your water. I will take sickness away from among you. None shall miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion. all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all of your enemies turn their backs on you.

So while God is the same, Jesus Christ, who is God, is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we see that in Hebrews 138. We can also read in John 1, that New Testament Jesus is God. He is the God that was there in the beginning. Nothing that was made was made without Jesus, without the fullness of this. triune God. So there are principles and characteristics of God that we can see in the Old Testament that we know we're still true today, but we have to have the discernment, the wisdom to be able to see what was true at a particular time, at a particular place for a particular people, and what is true for us today. And it certainly takes some navigation and some, in some cases, expert interpretation to be able to understand that. But really,

It also just takes reading comprehension, knowing scripture, and reading things in context. We can deduce from this passage that God is a God who cares about how we worship him, that he has certain regulations for his people, and that if they honored him, he would do certain things. What we do not see is that these exact instructions apply to Christians today and guarantee us those same blessings. because, see, Jesus has become our cleansing. He has become what sets us apart. That is why Christians today don't do all of the things that the ancient Israelites did because we don't have to follow the ceremonial laws anymore because Jesus became our sacrifice.

He became our ceremonial cleansing. He became the fulfillment of the promise. And so while these people are going towards the promised land, And that was really just a foreshadowing, a precursor of what God's people through Christ will get one day because of Jesus's sacrifice on our behalf. And that is eternity with Him in heaven, in the new heavens and the new earth. And so this is not a passage that we can apply directly to the Christian life today because this was for a particular people. a particular time. Again, we can apply some principles, characteristics of God to today, but we cannot apply all of these details to the lives of Christians today. I think that's obvious.

Like if you walked around a city with a wall seven days in a row, that wall isn't necessarily going to fall down like the walls of Jericho did. We have to be able to read with discernment and pray for the wisdom that James 5 guarantees us if we ask for it. And it's so, as I saw this video, which is just absolutely money-grapping, it's about selfishness, it's about self-enrichment, which is just absolutely evil. Will not only lead to those who propagate this to hell, but it will also lead those who believe this kind of prosperity gospel to hell. I thought of Galatians 216.

And really how this is, it's not just convincing people that giving money is going to guarantee something in return, but it's also true. trying to enslave people to the law, that if you do this, if you follow all these stipulations and regulations, honor the Passover. I mean, Christians don't even talk like that. But if you honor the Passover, the way that the Jews do or the Jews did, then God will do all of these things for you. I'm reminded of Galatians. And Paul in the book of Galatians really does not want these Christian converts to believe that in order to be good Christians, they continue, they have to follow the Jewish law. Galatians 216. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works

of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. Do you hear that? You will not be justified by works of the law. You will not be justified before God, made clean, made worthy, made right before God because you honor the Passover the way the Old Testament says that the ancient Israelites did. Now, that does not mean that we should not obey God. That doesn't mean that God has no rules for us. Of course he does.

We see that throughout Scripture. We still abide by the moral law that we see in the Old Testament because because Jesus doubled down on the moral law, whereas he fulfilled the ceremonial law by becoming our cleansing. When it came to the moral law, he didn't say, okay, we don't believe that anymore. He actually said, okay, you have heard it sad that you shouldn't murder anyone, but I say to you, if you hate someone in your heart, that's similar to murder. So he didn't do away with that law. He actually said it's not just about your actions, it's about your heart, which we read throughout scripture, especially in Galatians, that that starts with faith. And it is by grace through

faith that someone is justified, not by the works of the law. So be freed by that. I also read, just in light of the whole prosperity gospel, that if you do this, then God, like a genie, will do this for you. Philippians 412 through 13. Most of us who grew up in the church, we probably had some kind of like soccer jersey that said Philippians 413 on it. But in context, it's really a lot more beautiful than if you pray to God, then he will help you score a soccer goal. Verse 12, I have learned in whatever situation, actually that's verse 11. I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound, Paul says.

In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strength. me. So that's the prize. And the book of Philippians beautifully lays this out, especially in the first chapter of Philippians, that Christ is the prize. To live is Christ and to die is gained. That in whatever circumstance we have, when things are really hard, when we are going without, when it feels like nothing will ever get better, and when things are really good and really easy and really abundant, the prize, the satisfaction is Christ himself. If Christ never did anything else for us,

if God never gave us any other material blessing and all he had ever done for us was send his son to die for us and defeat death on the third day, that would be enough to say, hallelujah, praise the Lord, God is good. And then I thought of John 9 as I was reading this passage the other day and it made me think of my conversation with Costihan and we'll link that if you haven't listened to it. But he talks so poignantly about the dangers of the prosperity gospel and the beauty of the real gospel. And then a few days later, I was reading this passage. This is verse 1 through 3 of John 9. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might, be displayed in him. And then God heals him. Jesus heals him right there. And this man goes on praising God and telling people the testimony of his healing. And there you see the works of the power of God are being displayed in his testimony. And so Jesus is saying he is not being punished

because of his own sin or the sin of his ancestors. And what I'm about to do is not a reward for good deeds. This is for the glory of God. And we can remember that in our own difficulty, in our own sickness, because the prosperity gospel will make you think that you have done something wrong. And that is why you or your child is going through something hard. You have some kind of unconfessed sin or maybe you didn't trust God enough or maybe you didn't pray hard enough. But we hear from Jesus that in this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world. Again, Christ is the prize. And so remember this. Whenever you hear these peddlers of the prosperity gospel, because I hear people say, well, they've done good. They have this many people

in their congregations. Look at how many followers they have. Look at how close she is to power to President Trump. Maybe we shouldn't criticize her because they must be doing something right. do not use worldly indicators of favor as a test for someone's obedience. People who might look like they are failing by the world standards, they are obscure, they don't have any followers, they don't have any fame, they don't have any fortune, they might be the most successful in God's sight simply because of their unseen, unsung, obedience and courage in following the Lord. So pray for Paula White, but pray for every single person that has ever listened to her and believed her. These are heretical teachings that lead

straight to hell. But the gospel of Jesus, the truth, that he is enough for us, that he is our contentment and salvation and satisfaction, that will really set you free. All right, we've got another story I wanted to get to today. Let me pause and tell you about our sponsor for the day, our first one, that's seven weeks coffee. Seven weeks is America's pro-life coffee company. They're on a mission to fund the pro-life movement, one cup of coffee at a time. They've done just that. They've raised almost a million dollars to you guys. Because of you, because all of you are buying seven weeks coffee. They have donated over $800,000 for pregnancy centers across the country. So many ultrasounds, so many free baby items,

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You'll receive a free limited edition lint, tote, pray fast, and drink seven weeks coffee. So cute. Go to seven weeks coffee.com. Use code alley for an extra 10% off. Seven weeks coffee.com code alley. All right. What I'm about to talk about is not a new story, and it's not even a new post. I saw the post just the other day. And I realized that it had been posted actually a couple weeks ago by Jonathan Haidt. And most of you know who he is because he is the author of the bestselling book, The Anxious Generation. I mean, this has been on the New York Times bestseller list. I don't know. I think for over a year at this point, at least, maybe. maybe years. I mean, parents are just eating this information up because we all have this feeling

that, okay, something is wrong. Something might be wrong with us. Something might be wrong with our parents' generation. Something's definitely wrong with the younger generations. And that problem is that everyone's really anxious. Everyone's really overstimulated. We don't have an attention span. We're not satisfied with simple pleasures anymore. We seem dumber than we used to be. We can't work as hard anymore. We can't stay on task. And no one seems happier. Why? We have all of these wonderful luxuries. We have access to the best and easiest things in the world that make life fun and make life easy. And yet everyone seems really unhappy and really on edge. And so he wrote this book called The Anxious Generation, which talks about a lot of things, but he focuses on the detriment of

technology to our kids and the negative impact that technology addiction is having on these developing minds and it is way more prevalent than we think my kids my oldest is almost six and so I see a lot of other kids you know my my kids age and I did not realize how how pervasive this addiction to technology is. And I'm not just talking about TV. Maybe that was it when we were young, but I'm talking about kids, my kids age, that have basically unfettered access to iPads, to tablets, to phones, to video games, to different devices that are objectively making their brains mush. So listen to some of these statistics in this post that I saw on Jonathan Heights, Instagram. This is from a report from the common sense consensus, media use by kids zero to eight.

Okay, zero to eight. That's my kids age range. Here's what it says. Media used by kids zero to eight advances a long-running research series. So that's the title of it. A long-running research series that examines trends in the media consumption of young children, providing insights into the role that technology plays from the crib to the classroom. The last zero-to-eight census was conducted in early 2020, just before the

COVID pandemic, which means that this new report offers a unique post-pandemic examination of changes in children's media use and habits over this time period. So here are the key findings. By age 2, 40% of children have their own tablet. I have an 18 month old. She doesn't know what to do with the tablet. In fact, if I gave her my iPad, she would probably throw it in the fireplace. She would definitely break it, have no idea what to do with it. By age four, more than half of children have their own tablet. 60% of children by age four have their own tablet. Now, let me say, we don't know everything about how often these kids who have their own tablet use it. Okay? So this could be they have their own tablet, but their parent lets them use it once a week. They have their

own tablet, but their parent only allows them to use it on long road trips. Okay. So I will say that. We don't know that these, 60% of these children, 100% of these 60% of these children are using their talus every day. So we can calm down about that. By age 8, 1 and 4 children have their own cell phone. Now, that is wild to me. What is an 8-year-olds doing with a cell phone? What is a 7-year-old doing with a cell phone. Where are they going? They're not going to the mall. They're not going to the movies. What are they doing with a cell phone? How do they even know to have a cell phone? Among children who have their own phones, 80 percent, have a smartphone that can go online, use apps, and play videos. Guys, I have a hard time having self-control with this device and stopping myself from scrolling

and just going down the rabbit hole of different posts and different videos. And I am a full-fledged adult with frontal lobe who understands time, who understands consequences, and still this thing can get the better of me. I just can't imagine a child with an undeveloped brain being able or being expected to stop themselves, not just when it comes to time, but what they are seeing. They don't even know that what they will click on could lead them to watch pornography or see something disturbing that is going to be seared into their memory or give them nightmares. They just don't know. 19% of those one in four children under eight who have their own cell phone have kind of like a dumb phone and only 3% have like an absolute dumb phone.

So vast majority of those kids, zero to eight that have a phone have. in iPhone. Overall, 51% of children age 8 and younger, have their own mobile device of some kind. About 1 in 5 children under age 8 use mobile devices for emotional regulation, meal times, or to fall asleep. 23% use screens while eating at home, excuse me, 23%. 20% watch or play on a device every night or most nights to fall asleep. I'm not talking about 13 year olds. Again, I'm talking about six-year-olds here. I mean, this just absolutely breaks my heart. And I am, by no means, am I saying that my husband and I are perfect parents or that

we have never made a mistake or we've never had to course correct? Of course, every single parent has different challenges, different things that they have just done excellently and different things that they have not done well. And maybe you're a parent who you were making this mistake and you realized the bad effect, this was having on your family and you said, okay, we're not going to do that anymore. And I really respect that. But just imagine what you are doing to the mind of a child who is dependent upon a personal device to stop crying, to be patient, to quell boredom or to fall asleep. You are creating an addict. It is important for kids. And Jonathan Haidt talks about this a lot. It is

important for kids to be bored. Trust me, I know like how aggravating it is when your child who has all these toys and so many fun things to do, a play set in the backyard tells you that they're bored. What I have found, and here's the thing, is that this is hard. And that's what I think a lot of parents are avoiding. They want to avoid the hard parts of parenting, the parts that take like work and patience and self-control. And again, imperfect person here saying all of this, and I'm saying this from experience, that when I get through the initial annoyance of hearing my children say that they're bored and I simply don't change anything, I don't turn on the TV, they don't give them anything, they will find something to do. Now, sometimes I have to sacrifice

like clean clothes for that. There's something to do might be going to play with the water hose outside and getting themselves messy and I might have to be okay with that. But I, again, that is accepting that the right thing to do in most situations in parenting is the harder thing to do. That is honestly what I think is happening here is that a lot of parents, and we have all been there, they simply don't want to do the thing that takes longer. They don't want to do the thing that takes more patience and that takes more self-control because parents ourselves are overstimulated. We are therefore destabilized. We are therefore, And I know from experience that when I'm plugged in on my phone,

or I'm plugged in working or doing something and something tries to snap me out of that focus, I'm irritable. My first reaction is irritation. And if parents are constantly distracted by technology and we are constantly feeling like, okay, if we have one more thing that makes a sound around us, we're going to snap because we ourselves are overstimulated, then, of course, that's going to lead parents to say, just turn on the iPad. Fine. Just do it.

They don't want to deal with the temper tantrum. They don't want to discipline. Much of the gentle parenting movement has told parents that big feelings just kind of have to be validated that you can't tell your child, no, you can't take things away, you can't put them in time out, you can't enforce rules, you can't actually have an enforcement of boundaries. And so a lot of parents are unequipped, but I think a lot of parents, to be honest, are just lazy and tired and distracted and overstimulated. And it is nice for these parents to be able to give their child a pacifier because dealing with the

big emotions that you've been told are just perfectly acceptable is really hard. Again, speaking as a fallible person and an imperfect parent myself, this is what I see as a parent, but this is also just what I see by looking at culture. That it's really more than anything a parent problem, not a kid problem. And I've got some more evidence of that in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor. And that is Mossa chips. You guys, I love Masa chips.

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All right, I saw a couple videos in light of all of this that I wanted to play today that I think will spark a discussion and just make you think about this, not just from the parent perspective, but also from a teacher perspective. Now, I don't know who this person is. I saw their video. It looks like it was going viral on Instagram. So a lot of people related to it, all the comments that I read were agreeing with this teacher, both teachers and parents and people who work with kids in different capacities. I am sure this person and I don't align on a lot of things. In fact, I've seen her say some like progressive things, but it seems to me like she's a teacher who cares and she's spot on in this assessment from my perspective. Here's that too. So here is exactly what it's like right now,

working in public education. First of all, the kids have no ability to be bored whatsoever. They live on their phones and they're just fed a constant stream of dopamine from the minute their eyes wake up in the morning until they go to sleep at night. Because they're in a constant state of dopamine withdrawal at school, they behave like addicts. They're super emotional, like the smallest things sets them off. And when you are standing in front of them trying to teach, they're vacant. They have no ability to tune in if your communication isn't packaged in short little clips. And they have a level of apathy that I've never seen before in my whole career. Punishments don't work because they don't care about them. They don't care about grades. They don't care about

college. It's like you are interacting with them briefly in between hits of the internet. I can tell you with absolute certainty it is not the teacher's fault. Okay, teachers that I've talked to, both in private and public school, but I do think it's worse in public school because I think a lot of private schools have implemented different rules for probably a longer time now that have said, yeah, no, no phones. But I know this is also a problem at Christian schools, um, because I know parents of kids at Christian schools who have had to work really hard for schools to implement rules that say no phones, no phones in the hallway, no phones in the classroom. I think I was 16 when the iPhone first came out. I did not have an iPhone when it first came

out, but cell phones were already a problem. I think I got a flip phone in seventh grade because I was 13 and I think that was like the age that my parents started letting me go some places by myself with groups of friends. You know, they'd drop me off and I would call them when I want to be picked up. Really cool. I still remember my cell phone. And I remember being addicted to my phone then, always wanting to text. And that's all I could do.

I remember I would be so mad when I accidentally hit the button that would put you on the internet. I'm like, ah, now I have to get off the internet because it's going to slow everything down. And I was like, could not even comprehend what anyone would need the internet for on their phone. And of course, that changed very quickly over the course of the next few years. But all of my friends were also addicted to texting and always wanting to talk on the phone. And I remember even getting in trouble in middle school for taking my phone out of my backpack when I wasn't supposed to. There were strict rules around that. And then for some reason,

a lot of schools got lax. And then now it seems like they're waking up again to this being a huge problem. But it's still a problem, even if schools say you cannot be on your phone at all during school hours, kids who are on their phones all evening, they wake up with their phones, their brains are just turning to mush. And she made a point here that Jonathan Haidt has made that I think is really important. It is the addiction to dopamine. And all of us, no matter our age, are really susceptible to this. Like we need things to change quickly. We need. We need. We need stimulation. I've definitely been that person who I will be watching a show and I'm doing something on my phone and I'm typing something on my iPad. That honestly sounds like a good time to me.

There's something wrong with our brain when we need that much entertainment. And I can tell you, it is more difficult for me to read than it used to be, to pay attention for a long time. I have to, the book has to be really good and really enthralling for me to read several pages at a time without stopping. I say that to my shame, okay? And when I was in high school, thank goodness, because we just didn't have as much on our phones, I read all of the time. That's what I was staying up late doing. Now, it might have been some trashy teen fiction that I shouldn't have been reading, but I was reading. Might not have been good for my heart, but it was better for my brain than being on so.

social media would have been. I'm so glad we didn't have things like Snapchat. Also, just emotionally, I think that's so hard for teenagers, especially teenage girls, to see in real time that you're being left out rather than hearing about it on Monday after the weekend. But that's how I was, you know, spending my hours. And I could read for hours at a time and pay attention. And now I have a tough time doing that. I even have a tough time paying attention to a TV show without taking a break and looking at my phone again, unless it's really interesting to me. And I'm listening right now to an audio book about ADD. It's by Dr. Amen.

And he talks about how shows today move so much more quickly. The frame rate is a lot higher than it used to be to try to keep people's attention. This is true of video games. This is true of phone games. This is true of the videos that I even put up on social media. We have noticed, as every content creator does, that people need movement on the screen to pay attention to your video. That's why you see when you're watching a video, you probably don't even really notice it, but the video of the commentator will kind of jump in, jump out, it will cut, it will put up different graphics,

different pictures, different videos, different texts. That is because the user typically requires those things in order to pay attention. So this has done a number on all of our brains, but when kids whose brains aren't even developed are addicted to dopamine this early, they have a hard time ever being bored, learning how to entertain themselves, learning how to be curious, to satisfy their curiosity. They have a hard time reading. They have a hard time working. Their confidence levels lower because they don't know that they can do difficult things. They don't know that they can endure pain. They don't know that they can be patient.

They don't know that they can persevere because they are never made to. It is instant gratification. And all of this makes it really hard for them to become mature adults. They don't even know how to stop their own temper tantrums, to stop their own disappointment. Because rather than working through those feelings, they are simply given a pacifier in an iPad. And speaking of confidence, this is like, this is a big one and something that Jonathan Haidt talks about a lot. Confidence and courage.

That is something that is not just lacking in kids today, but it's also lacking in parents. And I get that. Like, because I go to the park a lot with my kids and my propensity is to be an anxious parent, is to overthink. And I have had to discipline myself and practice my own self-control and really letting my kids explore and even allowing to a reasonable extent risk and danger and injury when we're at the park. But I would say that most parents there are following their kids closely behind them every step of the way in every part of the park. I'm not talking about their little babies who can't

walk yet because that's understandable or who are kind of wobbly. I'm talking about three, four, and five-year-olds being kind of hovered and stalked by their parents on on the playground. And this is not just parents, this is not, it's not healthy for the most part. And again, speaking to someone who is tempted by that kind of thing. It's actually causing stunted growth in our, in our kids. That's what a lot of people argue. And Jonathan Haidt argues for allowing your kids to do risky things. at an age appropriate time, particularly around age seven. And so I saw this video going around

on Instagram that some people had an issue with, but I thought, okay, this is great. So the video is just so I don't have to play the whole thing. Let me give you a little context first. So this mom says she read this book, The Anxious Generation, and she read in it that they, you know, should be having their kids do hard things. And so she sent her seven-year-old son into the, this Chick-fil-A by himself to order dinner. She can't see him. She's just sitting outside in her car, gives the seven-year-old her card and says,

this is what you should order. If you need any help, ask the manager to help you. And she's so excited because this little kid comes out of the Chick-fil-A, carrying all of the drinks and all of the bags. He did it. He accomplished the task, and his reaction to accomplishing this task was just so sweet. Here's top three. Oh my gosh, he did it. Hey. I didn't have a manager or anything.

Really? He just gave it to me, yeah. They just served you? Yeah. And then. You got your happy mail and he gave me some money back. I want to do that again. Really?

Yeah. It is so fun. Do you feel like that built confidence? Yeah, for sure. Like a little nervous? Yeah. Like my legs are still shivering. Really?

But yeah, that was so fun. I just, I loved what he said there at the end, that his legs were still shivering. So he was scared, but he did it anyway. And, you know, I was talking to Marissa Strait, who is the head of Preyzer. you. And I remember her telling me the same thing that at about age seven is when you should start allowing your children to take reasonable risks. And I think it comes even before that depending on the child and depending on what it is. But having your child, you know, cook something or, you know, make breakfast, make their own lunch. And she said something that really stuck with me

because I think the rebuttal to that is always by parents, but what if they get hurt? And I remember she said, if the worst thing that happens is that they get hurt, like, that's okay. Like, you can go, you can get a Band-Aid or you can even go to the emergency room. That's not saying that that's a good thing. But if it's not a life or death situation, we should be allowing our children to even risk a certain level, of course. of injury because it's good for their character to be brave. And nowadays, like, we have to manufacture the situations for our kids to be brave, but that is a muscle that we want them to build before they leave the house.

So all of this, like, really convicts me, not the technology stuff, because that's not, we don't allow, like, the, you know, tablet use and the phone use and stuff in our home. But making sure that kids are given the opportunity for courage. and responsibility. And this goes back to doing the hard thing in parenting because it's easier just to do it ourselves. And gosh, I'm tempted by that. But doing the hard thing, the thing that takes more time, the thing that might elicit some temper tantrums, the thing that might demand of us emotional regulation and self-control is almost always the right thing to do as a parent. And gosh, we are all learning that. And it's different in every single.

season, as I'm sure I will know in the coming years. All right. We've got another segment, a new segment, as I said, with our new, or special guest. I'll call her a special guest. And her name is Phoenix. And she is Gen Z. And she asked if she could come on the show and talk about something that she felt is really important that I think is really important too. And that is a trend that's going on on TikTok called Skinny Talk. And it is basically glorifying anorexia. and this is a form of TikTok that is especially addicting for young women. First of all, your teenage girls shouldn't be on TikTok at all. But it's not just teenagers.

It's also young adults. And it is a very unhealthy response to the maybe exaggerated body positivity movement that seems to condone being unhealthy. So she's going to break this down for us in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor first. that's jace medical jace medical is making sure that you are prepared in a medical emergency say you've you have an infection it's urgent you can't get to your doctor you can't get to the pharmacy maybe you can't even get to the emergency room you just need antibiotics fast you don't want to be in

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They are giving away a travel Jace case, a Jays go case. If you go to Jays.com, use code Alley at check out for a discount on your order. That's jays.com code Alley. Phoenix, thanks so much for joining Relatable for the first time. Thank you for having me. Yes. So Phoenix talked to Bree and to me about this segment having kind of like a pop culture social media segment, but about things happening online that really matter. And you brought up Skinny Talk. I'm not on TikTok. So I have no idea what it is. But when you explain to me, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's probably having a big effect, especially on young women. So can you just break it down for us? What is it? Yeah, so Skinny Talk is essentially this whole, like, genre of TikTok where these influencers, they call themselves like skinny influencers are kind of taking to TikTok to help other people get skinny. But I think what they're promoting is kind of unhealthy. I mean, I don't want to like shame anyone, but I still feel like it's important to draw. a line as to like what is healthy behavior and what seems to be more along the lines of like

obsession leading to you know disordered thoughts and patterns yeah so i want to play some of these videos from is it i mean do they call themselves like skinny talk influencers they do okay okay so let's play some of these and then we can kind of get your reaction to them um live smit who is she before we play her video. Liv Schmitt is definitely one of the more like, I would say infamous skinny talk influencers. She's kind of one of the first ones. She is, I mean, well, first of all, like, she's objectively, like, beautiful and she seems like she likes to have fun and live her life, but she also kind of her shtick is, she calls it portion control, but, but,

It's very obsessive in the way that she, like, markets this, like, how to get skinny. She actually sells a course on, like, how to get skinny, everything I do to get skinny, et cetera. And so you feel like it's just glorifying eating disorders. It's basically very strict calorie restriction. Yes. And one of Liv Schmitt's things is that you need to, that you need to, like, portion restrict. to a degree that like she recommends like eating like five bites of a meal. Okay.

And then walking away. That's what's meant by it because obviously portion restriction like is important. We shouldn't eat like a whole pizza on our own because that's gluttony. But she's saying don't just don't eat until you're full. Eat like five bites. Okay, here's stop five. A lot of you love to ask me what I eat in a day. And the second I tell you or even hint at it, shock, it's horror, it's panic.

Like, that's barely any food. Yeah, no shit. What do you think I'm eating? A ton of donuts, pizza and McDonald's. Or every day, babe, be serious. Be so for a real. I don't eat like that because I don't want to look like that. I eat in portions.

I eat with intention. If I ate like garbage, I would feel like garbage. And I wouldn't look the way I do. I chose to be skinny. I chose to be disciplined. And if that makes you uncomfortable, that's not my. My problem. Okay.

Is it discipline or is it disorder? There's a difference. There is. So I feel like the difference lies in what she actually recommends. Now, she will say that she doesn't have any, like, restricted foods, but she also advocates for, like, actually only eating five bites of a meal and then walking away. So she's, it's a different version of, I feel like, disordered eating, not so much focused on, like, foods that you're afraid of, but focused on like just the portion size. That being so small, like it's actually like a toddler portion. Yes.

Okay. Everyone that I've known that has struggled with disordered eating, and I've talked about this before, I've written about it before, I did. when I was in college, it started out by, I wouldn't have called it interrexia at the time. And actually, I kind of have still a hard time calling it that, but it was certainly restrictive eating. And I had a lot of friends who were doing the same thing. But because we were eating and because we would eat cake and we would eat Mexican food and we would eat whatever we wanted, we would never say that we had any sort of issue.

But it was you would eat as small as possible. and then for me during this time period of my life, I was working out hard twice a day. And my goal was to cancel out any calories that I was eating. That is not discipline. That is a disorder. That's a disorder. I agree. I agree.

And I struggled with an eating disorder when I was in high school as well. And I have to agree with you. Like I did, I feel like the whole nine yards with it all. Like there were foods that I like absolutely refused to eat and I definitely like restricted the foods that I did eat. But I feel like that kind of that kind of mentality gives it's so hard because you don't want to like, you know, shame these people or give them like the negative attention that they're that they're seeking because like that's eating disorders are competitive. And these people, Liv Schmidt, she says all the time, eat small, be small. Or she also says, you're not a dog, don't reward yourself with food, which I feel like is so telling of where her mindset actually is. Yeah.

I remember I had a friend who recommended a book in college and it was called The Skinny Girl Method. And it was literally like never eat a full banana. just eat half of it and to put it away. I'm like, what? I mean, that's basically, that's basically what we're talking about here. Quick pause from that conversation to tell you guys about one of my all-time favorite sponsors because they make some of my all-time favorite products.

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I use their products for my makeup. Their moisturizing foundation and blush is all just so good. This is a Christian family-owned company who only use holistic natural ingredients in every single one of their handmade products. Go to adele natural cosmetics.com. When you use code Alley, you get 25% off your first time purchase. That's Adele Natural Cosmetics.com, code Alley. Okay, there's someone who goes by, I guess, the moniker, the mean older sister of TikTok.

Minna, or is it Mina? I think that one's Amanda Doppler. Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. Mina Zaley. Mina Zayli is on, is on, on one of the bigger skinny influencers on TikTok. Okay, let's play Sot Night.

Welcome to Skinny Talk. Get ready with me while I tell you my biggest tips and tricks I use to stay skinny. There is no secret. There is no tricks. You just eat less and you stay active. You make it your lifestyle. Yeah. There is no tips and tricks.

There is no buckwheat. There is no intermittent fasting. there is no carnivore diet that will make you lose weight and keep it off. It's one of those things where once you lose the weight, you continue doing that to an extent to keep it off. Okay, here is the mean or older sister. We had that on the wrong person. Amanda Dobler saw eight.

You want to lose weight, but you're super busy right now, and you're going to wait until you actually have time in like a few weeks or a few months. That's pathetic. You're quitting before you even start. Like, that is just the most loser behavior. I've ever heard of in my entire life. Okay. So are these people reacting to the overly exaggerated body positivity movement, which basically

has people on the cover of, you know, 17 magazine who are obviously not in shape saying, this is healthy. It's okay to be obese and you can be whatever weight you want and it's totally healthy. That's also not true. Do you see this as kind of an unhealthy pendulum swing from that? Totally. Yeah, I think it's largely reactionary. I think a lot of, I think it's expressing a desire that a lot of women have to be beautiful and, you know, be healthy.

And there's, but the problem is that, you know, when you get so obsessed with it, that, like, you talk that way to yourself and you talk that. that way to other people. Like, it definitely demonstrates a level of obsession that is like the complete other side of unhealthy behavior. And, and, you know, the one thing that I really feel like the body positivity movement got right was that, like, we shouldn't be shaming people for how they look. Like that, that kind of like early 2000s tabloids thing where, you know, they would blow up images of celebrities literally just trying to have a vacation. Yeah. And be like, oh my God, look at her cellulite. She's gained five pounds. And that like, the body positivity movement absolutely hit the nose, like, hit it on the nose when they said like, no, we shouldn't be doing that.

Yeah. And this is kind of like reverting back to that, you know, mindset. Yeah, 90s, early 2000s where, yeah, there's gosh, there's so much there. There's this comedian. And she talked about how she was, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s and how she took something called Dexatrim to lose weight. And she said it was literally speed. It was like speed that she would take it. It's a funny bit. But obviously it was really unhealthy.

And I'm even thinking I was in college or I was in high school, you know, it was probably 2008. And my friends and I did a special K diet before homecoming or something. Gosh, so stupid. We were all probably, you know, tiny. me anyway. And we did a special K diet that was, it was guaranteed that you would lose, you know, 10 pounds in two weeks or something like that. And I'm like, of course, because all you ate was special K, which is basically air. And so, I mean, it swung the other direction to where it's like, eat whatever you want, look at like whatever you want, don't work out, whatever

feels good to some degree. But yeah, we've got to land somewhere in the middle where we say it's okay to not have a quote unquote perfect body. You're supposed to have body fat. You are supposed to eat until you are satisfied. And we should be focusing on healthy foods that nourish our bodies, not just being a certain weight. But with the Ozympic craze, it's made a lot of people want to look thick skinny again. Yeah, I think that's a really good point to bring up because, like, you know, what Hollywood does, I feel like, influencers monetize, you know, when it was, when it was like the Kardashian curves were very

in style. Influencers were selling like how to get Kim Kardashian butt workout programs. Like one that comes to mind for me is a girl named Daisy Keech. She's kind of known for that like itty bitty waist, like big hips and definitely very like strong glutes. But, you know, that's kind of her natural genetics and, you know, those influencers, definitely knew that the Kardashians had BBLs, but they were still trying to sell you this program that would promise to make you look like Kylie. And BBL is a Brazilian butt lift. And that is like a procedure. Yes. That they have. And now the Kardashians are a lot skinnier than they used to be. Oh, yeah. I feel like they've totally jumped on the weight loss craze that we've kind of been seeing

in Hollywood as well. Along with people like Sharon Osborne has been really vocal. about her journey with Ozzympic. People like Rebel Wilson. Yeah. And I think Kelly Clarkson has gotten a lot thinner. And that's not always bad. No. I'm not even personally.

I'm not against OZMPIC for all people. I actually think because obesity, it can be really harmful. So I'm not against OZMPIC all around, but it certainly has given people like unrealistic expectations. Yeah. For weight loss and what actually is healthy. gosh, girls just have it really hard because I remember when it was cool back in like the

early 2000s to have part of your belly showing in between like your hips and your and your belly button. It was so weird. And I could never do that because you had to have like these little narrow hips to do that and I could never do that. And also literally abs. Yeah, yes.

And of course Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears had like the belly button rings. I was actually kind of excited when the Kardashians came on the same because then that meant that not everyone was trying to have like nine year old boy hips anymore but it just goes back and forth which just means we really should not be looking to social media or cultural trends to judge whether or not our body is healthy totally and and like ozempic has has definitely helped so many people I feel like you know it's been used in a clinical setting for a lot longer than it's been like this kind of cultural phenomenon and it's

absolutely help people like Western medicine should not be demonized. But, you know, then you see like this kind of resurgence of that like early 2009's like heroin chic where everybody's kind of stick thin and people who are already thin are either like dieting or using this drug allegedly, allegedly to get that way. Somebody that comes to mind is like Ariana Grande. Yeah. I don't know what's going on there. I hope she's okay.

I hope she's okay too. And not to shame her because, I mean, she seems really sweet and like a really wonderful person in some respects. Yeah. Not necessarily in the homewrecker respect. But, I mean, it's worrisome, you know. It's not to like call her out. It's just worrisome that, like, it seems like it's gotten to a point where she looks like

emaciated and it's sad. Yeah, I know. And it's really hard when that is being idolized, especially by young children. And this goes back to our, you know, our second story for the day that our kids need to be off social media and especially like our young girls. It just causes so much anxiety. But Phoenix, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and for telling us why it matters because it really does. I appreciate it. Appreciate you, Allie. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. That's all. we've got time for today. We will be back here on Monday.