The Dr. Hyman Show - Addressing The Root Causes Of Childhood Obesity with Dr. Elizabeth Boham

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Most kids are not sleeping enough in this country, and that has a huge impact on their metabolism. We know that when we're sleep-deprived, we're more likely to gain weight, we have higher levels of insulin, we have higher levels of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. This time of year, we're all looking for ways to support our immune systems. If we wanna feel truly healthy and vibrant, we need to be able to effectively fight off

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Starting point is 00:02:25 surprise that sleep is a huge part of optimizing our health. All of us should be focused on getting the best sleep possible if we want to maintain a healthy weight, feel energized, and stay sharp. And that comes down to several different factors. Now something we have the most control over in terms of sleep is our physical environment and the type of light we're exposed to. After spending more time at my computer when working on my recent book, I noticed my eyes always felt dry and heavy and wasn't sleeping so good or as long as I used to. The screens we're surrounded by all day long are sources of artificial blue and green light that disrupts melatonin production. That alters our delicate circadian rhythms and impacts all our other hormones. It also means it's harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. So what did I do about this? Well, one of the easiest and most

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Starting point is 00:04:53 pair of reading glasses to someone in need. I really hope you'll check them out. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's pharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And this conversation is gonna matter because we are facing an epidemic of childhood obesity. We're gonna talk deeply about what this is,

Starting point is 00:05:23 how it's happening and how to fix it. And we've got none other than Dr. Elizabeth is, how it's happening, and how to fix it. And we've got none other than Dr. Elizabeth Boham, who's my colleague here at the Ultra Wellness Center on this special episode of House Call of the Doctors' Pharmacy. Liz is an incredible doc. She's a RD first, a nutritionist, exercise physiologist, an MD with a fellowship in nutrition. She is the doctor's doctor, and I'm just so glad to have her as part of our team as our medical director here at the Alta Juana Center. Welcome back to the doctor's pharmacy. Thank you, Mark. It's great to be here. Okay, so this is not a fun topic, but we got to

Starting point is 00:05:52 discuss it, which is the fact that we have a problem of childhood obesity. We have had to rename diabetes from adult-onset diabetes and juvenile diabetes to type 2 diabetes and type 1. Why? Because little kids were getting adult-onset diabetes. Kids as young as 2 or 3 are getting type 2 diabetes or adult-onset diabetes. One in four teenage boys, one in four teenage boys has prediabetes or type 2 diabetes. We're seeing 30 plus percent of kids in America overweight or obese. One out of three kids. Is this their fault? Because we have a view that obesity is really a personal issue. It's an issue of personal responsibility.

Starting point is 00:06:48 It's either because you eat too much and you're a glutton or you're lazy, you don't exercise enough or both. But when a two-year-old has diabetes, is it really their fault? No, I mean, we know that it has so much to do with their mothers and their mother's pregnancy and how much weight she gained during pregnancy and what she ate during pregnancy. But we also know it's probably going back even more generations because we're learning so much about epigenetics and how that influences our metabolism. So what your mom ate and her mom ate during pregnancy is influencing how your metabolism is going to work.

Starting point is 00:07:32 We know that babies that are born underweight are at increased risk for obesity and insulin resistance when they're children and adults. We also know that babies that are born overweight are at increased risk for insulin resistance and obesity when they're children and when they grow up. So there really is the optimal weight for a child to be born at. And what that mother eats and how much weight she gains and how active she is, or I'm sure there's a lot more to it.

Starting point is 00:08:06 We know there's a lot more to it, right, in terms of toxins in the environment and the microbiome. But there's just so many different angles to this that are important to be paying attention to. I've been being born by C-section. And you're talking about it's very important, is that the environment in which the fetus grows, the term is a lot about programming its future risk of disease.

Starting point is 00:08:26 Yes. Risk of cancer, risk of heart disease, risk of diabetes, risk of obesity. And it's a lot of pressure on the mother, to be honest with you. And that's not to make people feel guilty, but it's to double down on your healthy habits when you're pregnant and your healthy diet. But it's far more than that, right? These kids are often born into a toxic nutritional landscape. And they're fed foods that aren't even foods.

Starting point is 00:08:49 I mean, baby food. What the heck is baby food? I mean, there's all this baby food. You think our hunter-gatherer ancestors had Gerber? I mean, what a bunch of nonsense. They had breast milk and then they ate regular food. Oh, that just drives me crazy. When you go to a restaurant and there's a children of nonsense. They had breast milk and then they ate regular food. Oh, that just drives me crazy. When you go to a restaurant and there's a children's menu,

Starting point is 00:09:07 and I remember when my kids were little and they'd be like, can I bring the children's menu? I'm like, what? Because you know, you see what's on the children's menu. It's just crap. Fries, burgers, hot dogs, pizza, pasta, right? It's true. And you know, like what, what did kids eat in Japan? They eat raw fish and seaweed. Yeah. Right. They don't have happy meals or Lunchables or Go-Gurts. Yeah. They don't have all this junky cereals, Froot Loops and Captain Crunch and Cocoa Puffs. I mean, it just, it's staggering what we feed our kids. I mean, we feed our kids stuff we wouldn't feed to our dog. Right. Think about that. Would you get your Gog Cocoa Puffs?

Starting point is 00:09:50 No. And it's crazy that people think, oh, well, this is all they'll eat. This is all my child will eat. They're just, or they really are picky eaters. So I want to make sure that they're getting what they will eat. And so I get very concerned about these children's menus. It drives me crazy. Well, you know, it's true. There were two things on the menu at my house when my kids were growing up. Take it or leave it. This was not a restaurant.

Starting point is 00:10:14 There was no menu. You didn't get to have different foods. You ate it or you didn't eat it. You know, my mother told me a story of my sister when she was young. She didn't want to have her breakfast. She didn't want to eat the eggs. So she didn't make her eat them, but she gave her the same exact eggs for lunch and the same exact eggs for dinner. By dinner time, she was hungry and she ate them and she never did eat her eggs again. Now, we don't have to be so draconian, but I do think

Starting point is 00:10:39 that it's important that we understand that the food environment we create for our children determines their whole life. If you're obese as a kid, your life expectancy is 13 years less than if you're not. If you're obese at age five, if you have severe obesity at age five, you're 90% likely to have obesity when you're older and an adult. And so, you know, it's so hard. We know for so many people, it's so hard to lose weight, right? I mean, I have some patients that they can't gain weight, but most people, they're struggling with their weight, with gaining too much weight and trying to keep the weight off. When you have, when a child gets obese or overweight as a child, it makes it so much harder for them when they're an adult.

Starting point is 00:11:23 It kind of programs them. It programs them. It programs them. It gives them extra fat cells. It makes it very hard for them to maintain a normal weight as an adult. Prevention is really key here. It's very important that we deal with prevention because it makes it easier for that child for their whole life if we prevent that weight gain in the first place. And it's not just the health consequences, which are staggering, right?

Starting point is 00:11:45 Increased heart disease, gallstones, fatty liver, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, asthma, sleep apnea, all kinds of orthopedic problems. Those are bad enough. But it is the worst stigma for a kid to be overweight. I mean, they've studied kids and they'd rather hang out with a kid in a wheelchair who's a quadriplegic than a kid who's overweight. Yeah. That's how bad the stigma is.

Starting point is 00:12:08 Yeah. And we often stigmatize each other and the kids because we have this view that it's personal choice. But when you're dumped into an environment with foods that are highly addictive, that are designed to hijack your brain chemistry, hijack your hormones, hijack your metabolism, deliberately designed by food companies in taste institutes who hire craving experts to create the bliss point of food. I'm not making this up.

Starting point is 00:12:33 Literally, the terms they use in their internal corporate documents to create heavy users. I mean, this is just criminal in my view. It's criminal. And the food marketing to kids, I mean, the average two-year-old, you know, barely talk, but they can recognize junk food and call for it by name when they go to the grocery store and they came and walk. Yep. You know, that is terrifying to me.

Starting point is 00:12:54 And kids can't distinguish on television or an ad between reality and fiction until they're eight years old. Yep. And there's now stealth marketing, which is terrifying because, you know, kids see, you know, thousands and thousands, maybe 10,000 commercials a year on television. But Facebook, for example, had 5 billion with a B, billion ads for junk food targeted at kids in one year. How do you fight that? It's so hard. It's so hard to fight it. And, but it's important. I mean, when you go, when you bring your child to the doctors, what you're looking at, they look at

Starting point is 00:13:31 the growth chart and they look at the BMI. And if, you know, the BMI or body mass index is not a perfect marker. I mean, there's problems with it, but it is something we use as a guide and it can give you some indication of where your child's at. So if you're greater than the 85th percentile for your child's age and sex, they're considered overweight. And greater than 95th percentile on that growth chart, you're considered obese. And now we have a category for the severe obesity, which is super obese, which is 20% over that 95th percentile. And, or BMI- Talking to me more than 100%.

Starting point is 00:14:10 I know. It's like you're 120%. Right. And so if your BMI is greater than 35 for a child- Just to put that in perspective, you know, these percentile graphs are made on population data where they look at the entire population and the whole population has to fit into 100%. Right. Zero to 100. Now they had to create a new category of 120% or more. Yeah. Well, how does that happen? It happens because the entire population shifts into a

Starting point is 00:14:37 category that never existed before. There were no kids who were that overweight unless they had some weird genetic disorder like, you, like Pickwick syndrome or something. I think we are really in this crisis now because we're threatening the next generation of our entire human race. And this is happening globally. It's not just here. Absolutely. We see it's 5% of children or adolescents in the US.

Starting point is 00:15:02 And for those teenage years, 7% of girls and 9% of boys are in that severe obesity category. And as you mentioned earlier, a third of children are either overweight or obese. And as we have just talked about, prevention is key here. That's just making it so much harder for them throughout their whole lives. And whatever we can do at this stage of the game with your young children, whatever you can do at this stage of the game with your young children, whatever you can do at this stage of the game is really critical for setting them up for success. And it's often a lack of education, awareness, understanding. It's generational. It's food apartheid, which is this term that's been used over the last few years by people in

Starting point is 00:15:43 these communities to talk about what's really going on. Because a food desert sounds like a natural phenomenon. Oh, it's a desert. It's a forest. It's a river. No, this is much more serious. This is segregation and division of our culture in ways that lead and perpetuate to racial injustice, to structural racism and structural violence that drives these communities to continue to suffer from chronic disease and health disparities and obesity. I mean, the average African-American kids drinks twice as much soda as a white kid. Not because they like it more. It's because there's just a lack of education, awareness. And there's also increased pressure of marketing in these

Starting point is 00:16:22 communities. I mean, every time there's a food stamp coming out every month and you get your food stamps for the month, the local bodegas will actually put giant ads up for, you know, get your two liter bottle of soda, we take EFT, electronic funds, whatever they call it, EFTs. It's just unconscionable to me. And it's terrifying to me because we're really threatening the next generation of our population. And if we don't stop and take care of this now, it's terrifying. Harvey Karp, who's a friend, a physician, who's a pediatrician, said, you know, if a foreign nation were doing to our children what we are doing, we would go to war to protect

Starting point is 00:17:04 them. We would go to war. We are not doing anything to protect our kids. Nothing. We're not limiting food marketing. We're not getting rid of all these junk crap foods that they're targeting kids. We're not fixing the school lunch program. We're not fixing the school lunch. School lunches are better because of Obama's Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, but it's still not where it needs to be. A pizza is still a vegetable. Yeah. And I mean, that's a great place to start is just with the added sugar.

Starting point is 00:17:28 I mean, they say that the average child is consuming 270 calories a day, which is 10 to 15% of their total caloric intake on sugar-sweetened beverages. So that's 10 to 15% of calories that are nutrient devoid, no nutritional value, and are only leading to this whole problem of weight gain, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic issues throughout their whole life. You know, as we've talked in the past all about how that shifts your fertility. Yeah. I mean, there's so many aspects to it. So, I mean, that's a great place to start. And no, really, most of our kids, all our kids, very few of our kids need any sort of sports drinks at all. Energy drinks.

Starting point is 00:18:13 Energy drinks. Juice boxes. Yeah. I mean, it's terrible. One soda increases a kid's risk of being obese by 60%. One soda a day. It's crazy. It's pretty crazy.

Starting point is 00:18:26 And it's a huge part of their caloric intake. It's up to 15% of the average kid's intake. And it's something that's just so unnecessary. I was at a conference on childhood obesity. And it was in Atlanta. And Bernice King was there. It was really fascinating. It was with one of the major

Starting point is 00:18:45 universities there, Emory, I think. And there was a guy, a doctor there who was a liver specialist. And I'm like, what are you doing here? He has a pediatric liver. I'm like, he said, well, we're seeing enormous rates of fatty liver in kids. And we're seeing teenagers on the transplant list for livers. Yep. All because of insulin resistance and mostly from sugar sweetened beverages, right? Yeah. From high fructose corn syrup, which is specifically targets the liver in terms of creating a fatty liver. And for those of you who really want to understand a lot about these issues, there was a movie a few years ago, came out in 2014 that I starred in. Well, not really starred in, but I was in it. And it's called Fed Up. It's on Netflix. And I encourage you to watch it because it really

Starting point is 00:19:31 highlights the ways in which our children are so affected by this. I mean, there's a kid who's 16 years old who needs a gastric bypass. Right. Right. Huge. How does that make sense? It doesn't make any sense. So we want to talk about what can we do? What can you do when, you know, how can you feed your child right from the start? Right. Huge. How does that make sense? It doesn't make any sense. So we want to talk about what can we do? What can you do when, you know, how can you feed your child right from the start? Right. And so the first thing we always talk about is the importance of breastfeeding. You know, we know that whenever possible, you want to breastfeed your child because it decreases their risk of obesity lifelong. So, you know, that is an important thing. There's, you really. How does that work? So, you know, that's a great question.

Starting point is 00:20:07 I have some ideas, but I want to hear what your ideas are. You know, you're shifting. It's the composition of the breast milk. You're shifting. There's better limitations on what the baby will consume. So when they're breastfeeding, they don't consume as much as when they're bottle fed. You know, the bottle feeding, you get more milk faster through a bottle than you do through a breast. And so that actually impacts the amount of calories that the baby consumes. There's probably issues. Sure, there's issues with the microbiome that gets shifted through breastfeeding that is

Starting point is 00:20:41 not happening when babies are bottle fed. There could be even what's in the bottle itself, right? So if the bottle is a hard plastic, we know, for example, BPA is impacting our metabolism and our weight. Yeah, it causes prediabetes. Yes. So there's probably so many issues with breastfeeding versus bottle feeding. What's fascinating is when you drink formula, it actually changes the microbiome and feeds bugs that are pretty toxic and create inflammation in the body. And what's really fascinating about breast milk

Starting point is 00:21:15 is that there's all these undigestible fibers and starches in there called these oligosaccharides that have no nutritional value for the baby, but they're designed completely to feed the microbiome, which is just this beautiful sort of virtuous cycle that is allowing these kids to thrive and get healthy and reduce inflammation and really get them healthy. So not everybody can breastfeed, but it is really important. I think that's really key. What else can parents do?

Starting point is 00:21:49 You know, and avoiding those sugar-sweetened beverages, as we've mentioned. That's, you know- No liquid sugar calories, period. Period. No juice. No juice, no sports drinks, no soda, you know, no, I don't know, Kool-Aid or any of those. There's just no need for any of it. It's empty calories and there's no need. Every once in a while, you can give a child some diluted 100% juice if you want to, but

Starting point is 00:22:11 it's not necessary. It's not something they should have every day. Not part of their fruit and vegetable consumption? No, it's not part of their fruit and vegetable consumption. So that's key. Getting your kids moving, getting them outside every day, you know, that's really important. It gets them, you know, unfortunately, it's harder to move these days unless you put it into your schedule and we need to put it into our kids' schedule. We need to make

Starting point is 00:22:36 it part of their day that they get out and they move and either they're playing a sport or they're just having fun and they, you know, they spend some time. They're doing a lot of finger exercises on their phone. Oh my goodness, the phone. It's- Scrolling, tapping, liking. It's making it so much harder for parents. It's making it so much harder for parents to help their kids grow and develop.

Starting point is 00:22:55 So screen time, really the recommendations are none for kids under the age of two. And then less than two hours after that, you wanna limit screens in the bedroom. There's no need for a TV, a phone, or a computer in the bedroom. So you just have the kids not have it in there. It helps with their sleep, which is another thing that's critical. Most kids are not sleeping enough in this country, and that has a huge impact on their

Starting point is 00:23:23 metabolism. We know that when we're sleep deprived, we're more likely to gain weight. We have higher levels of insulin. We have higher levels of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. So it's really important that you put restrictions on your children's sleep and wake cycle. That really is helpful. You know, our teenagers still need 8 to 10 hours a night. Those six to 12 year olds need nine to 12 hours of sleep a night. And of course, you know, we, you know, the one to two year olds are needing 11 to 14 hours. So, you know, as you get younger, you're needing more sleep.

Starting point is 00:23:56 But even though teenagers need eight to 10 hours of night of sleep, and that's, you know, gets harder when they get older, they want to stay up late. They want to be on their phone. They want to talk to somebody. And, you know, it's really important. We know that children in the children years, if they get to sleep before 8 p.m., they have a lower rate of obesity and they have a lower rate of weight gain. They have less, of course, sleep deprivation. They get better sleep. We know that sleep deprivation, as I mentioned, increases insulin. It increases ghrelin, which makes them hungry. Yeah, if you don't sleep enough, you're hungrier and you crave more sugar and carbs. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:24:35 And then you create this- That's true for adults as well, by the way. It is. It creates this inflammatory process in the body that even if you're eating the right foods, you're more likely to gain weight, which I think is important to remember. That even if you're eating the right foods, you're more likely to gain weight, which I think is important to remember that even if you're eating the right foods, if you're not sleeping enough, your metabolism can be messed up. I talk to my daughter about this one all the time. I bet.

Starting point is 00:24:54 You know? Well, the other thing I often talk about is how do you make your home a safe zone? Yes. I mean, a kid who's three years old who's gaining weight or five years old isn't saying, hey, dad, can I have the keys? Go to a car. I'm going to go to McDonald's or I'm going to 7-Eleven to get a big gulp. They're not doing that. How do you make your home a safe zone? I think this is so important. Yes, it's okay to have treats. If you're making, make cookies yourself, like make it from real ingredients. Don't, you know, eat a ton of them you can have stuff but if you want french fries make them

Starting point is 00:25:25 yourself you know like i think there's a level of of responsibility the parents have which was also important for themselves to actually create a safe home environment for their children people put little things in the plugs i mean the kid is less likely to die from electrocution than they are from the bad food that you have in your cupboard. Then the Froot Loops you're serving them for breakfast or the French toast or the, you know, the sweetened yogurt, which has more sugar per ounce than a can of soda. Yeah. So we really have to take that seriously. And in my house, you know, my son once said, you know, Dad, I want to invite my friends over, but there's nothing to eat in the house, right? And of course, there was a lot to eat. It just was stuff you had

Starting point is 00:26:09 to cook and make, and it was, you know, real food. I said, okay, let's go to the grocery store. I said, you can get whatever you want. Buy whatever you want. There's one condition. You have to read the label, and it can't have any trans fats or high fructose corn syrup he's like dad there's nothing to buy nothing and i'm like exactly like you you there are there are grocery stores where you can buy healthier forms of snacks there are a place like thrive market you can go to thrive market.com and find delicious snacks that are lower in sugar that are higher in protein that have good fats that don't have all the refined starches and sugars. So you can do it, but it takes a little work and it takes a little education. And I think that's the problem is we really aren't taking this

Starting point is 00:26:52 seriously as a society. And now your son is an amazing cook and he loves to cook and make delicious food that I've gotten the great opportunity to consume. So, I mean, I think we have to be getting our kids into the kitchen at a young age as, you know, even when they're, when they're two, you know, having that high chair or, you know, their bouncy seat right in the kitchen, getting them used to and around your cooking, getting them involved, having them have input, you know, really is helpful. You know, we don't want to be just like, oh, you can't have this and you want to have this. You want them involved in the process. It makes it a lot better. You know, you want them having suggestions like, well, you know, let's, let's come up together with some healthy food that you

Starting point is 00:27:33 want to have tonight. What would you like to help me cook? Let's, can you help with preparation, peeling or cutting or mixing? That really gets them involved and they become part of the, the recipe and the preparation and then they love it more and then they want to eat it more. Yeah, and you can make cool stuff that's delicious. Like instead of making waffles from white flour, you can make waffles from cashews, for example. So I make cashew waffles or you make almond flour pancakes.

Starting point is 00:27:59 There's substitutes and swaps. Kids can still have fun. And you don't have to put on a ton of maple syrup. You can use fruit. You can use fruit spreads. So there's a way, there's a lot of hacks. When my kids were young, we had a book called Pretend Soup, which was like 50 recipes that are fun to make with your kids that have fun names that are delicious to eat, that are made from real ingredients. And so I think, you know, we all have to get back in the kitchen. I think

Starting point is 00:28:20 the average person in America spends more time watching cooking on television than actually cooking themselves. So I think we have to get back into the cooking situation. It doesn't have to be that hard. We had a doctor dinner at our house the other night and you came a little bit late, but George was there and Ty was there early. And literally nothing was ready and it was 5.15 and everybody's coming over at 5.30. And literally, dinner was ready on the table at 5.45. And we made this incredible meal. I just stuck some, you know, lion's mane mushrooms in the oven. We sautéed some Chinese cabbage and garlic, which took three minutes.

Starting point is 00:28:57 We put a, you know, roasted salmon in the oven for 20 minutes and roasted squash, butternut and kabocha squash and tossed some cinnamon on there. And we just threw it all in the oven. It was like delicious. It was delicious, Mark, thank you. You know, it's a gourmet meal, but it doesn't have to be so hard and it can be incredibly yummy and delicious.

Starting point is 00:29:14 And I think, you know, that was delicious, thank you. And I think what's really critical is just recognizing how important it is to be working right from the beginning, right when your kids are when they're born and early in life, and not just sort of putting it off, because it really makes a huge difference for them later on. The first case I have is this 10 year old. And, you know, for boys, it's actually a common age where they do start to gain some weight because it's before they start to grow. And so sometimes a little bit of extra weight around that age may be okay. But this mom was getting concerned and he was gaining a little too much weight around his belly.

Starting point is 00:29:57 And he was starting to play more on his phone and playing more games on his phone. So he was becoming less active outside. And when we got his detailed food intake, you know, we realized and mom actually realized how much some of these processed, refined carbohydrates were sneaking into his diet. Not that he had a bad diet, but they sneak in, right? He was having some pancakes for breakfast, and he'd come home from school and snack on crackers and pretzels and with some juice. And he was kind of picky. He wasn't a big vegetable eater.

Starting point is 00:30:29 So what was really critical and what we really focused on with him, and as you know, we have a nutritionist with every patient who comes in, they see a nutritionist as well. So our nutritionist really focused on, you know, getting him cooking and getting him excited about all the different things that he could prepare and cook. And that was great for him. He started to experiment with different vegetables in the kitchen and, you know, went shopping with mom. And, you know, we encouraged mom to really, and dad to pull out some of the refined and processed foods at home. So they weren even around like you said make it a safe zone so he's not like he doesn't have to oh i okay i'm gonna not want to eat those extra cookies or the extra crackers you don't even have to make the decision the food's just not there at that level i mean yeah i think you can go out and

Starting point is 00:31:19 stuff you want to treat or whatever but yeah it's an effort if you have to like drive five miles to go get ice cream you might not do it right and listen, there are many nights when I would be home. If, if I, if there was a Haagen-Dazs, uh, you know, vanilla Swiss almond or Ben and Jerry's chunky monkey in the fridge, I would eat it. I would eat it. Even, even me who knows more than most people about nutrition and, and, and has written many, many books about it. I would eat it. even me who knows more than most people about nutrition and and and has written many many books about it i would eat it so i just don't have it in the house yep you know and my daughter we're on vacation martha's vineyard's like dad let's go get ice cream i'm like okay it's like a 20 minute drive like do we really want to go okay we'll go once you know and and

Starting point is 00:32:00 it'll be a treat and i'll do it like once or twice a summer. It's fine. But it's the daily inundation with the ultra processed foods, which is 60% of our calories. It's killing our kids. And I think we really have to understand the role of the family. And even if you have a weird family, like a single parent or I was a single parent, you can do it. And I made it a huge point to have family dinners. And I'm just amazed at how many families don't eat together. And I was just interviewing Sean Stevenson, who grew up in a very, you know, underserved area, was very food insecure, lived on food stamps. He said he can count on the fingers of one hand

Starting point is 00:32:48 the number of times he sat down with his entire family for a family dinner. And it was something that I insisted on, even when I was working hard, even when I was a single parent, had a job, just trying to do it all. It was so important to me to come home, to cook with the kids, bring them in the kitchen, have them help, teach them about food. And now they're both amazing cooks. They love to make food. I didn't teach them to cook. We just did it as part of life.

Starting point is 00:33:17 And it's sort of how we all grew up, learning the traditions. And now we have generations who don't know how to cook, who've never cooked a meal, who don't know how to stir fry a vegetable, who don't know how to cook an egg, who don't know how to just do the most simple things other than open a package and stick it in a microwave. Yeah. And I think that's what really was great with this first case here of the 10-year-old boy is that he learned a lot more about nutrition and he got involved in it. And then he was the one leading the way in terms of let's make this mom and let's add in this vegetable. And then he was the one leading the way, you know, in terms of let's make this mom and let's add in this vegetable. And, and, and, and we really also focused on his sleep, you know, at age 10,

Starting point is 00:33:50 you need, you know, that 10 to 12 hours of sleep a night. And a lot of times parents forget that, you know, and they don't realize they still need a lot, a lot of sleep, those kids. So that was really important. And, um, you know, he's doing great. He grew, he grew, he grew. And so his weight is now in the normal range. And he's just really thriving and doing really well. It's wonderful. You know, it's not always easy. And it is a struggle.

Starting point is 00:34:14 I mean, I used to make my kids lunch every day and healthy lunches and bring them to school. And they would like trade with other kids. So you can only go so far. But there's a lot we can do as parents to make a difference. And there's also a lot we need to do as a society to address this at a bigger scale. You know, in some countries like Chile, they've eliminated all food marketing to kids between six in the morning and 10 at night. They've put warning labels on boxes. They've taken off

Starting point is 00:34:40 Tony the Tiger and all cartoon characters from any kids foods. They've not allowed any junk in schools. You know, now in our schools, they have what we call competitive foods, right? Yep. So competitive foods. So let's see, do you want an apple or do you want a cookie? Like, well, the kid's going to eat a cookie, of course, right? So the whole system is terrible in our schools. The school lunches need a long way to go. You know, 50% of schools have brand name

Starting point is 00:35:06 fast food companies serving food in their school cafeteria. It's Taco Bell Tuesday. It's McDonald's Monday. It's Wendy's Wednesday. I mean, it's terrible out there. And, you know, Pizza Hut and this and that. And, you know, 80% get funding from soda companies and there's soda machines. And it's just, it's really criminal. And even if, you know, the school lunch is okay. And then, of course, they circle the kids' schools and the school districts,

Starting point is 00:35:38 especially in underserved areas with bodegas, with all kinds of crap, with fast food restaurants. So, I mean, think about it. You wouldn't let crack dealers stand outside the playground and be ready for when your kids come off the playground to give them some crack. And that's exactly what we're doing with our kids. And then sports drinks. You know, a lot of times parents think, oh, my kid just played four hours of soccer today

Starting point is 00:35:57 and they need a Gatorade or two. You just don't need to do that. You can just give orange slices at halftime and give them water. And there's electrolyte replacements if you want to do that. You know, you can use, you can just give orange slices at halftime and give them water, you know, and there's electrolyte replacements if you want to use that of that are that are that don't have added sugar. And you can just use like coconut water, too. There's lots of ways to avoid all that extra sugar. It's true. I mean, we have to as parents stand, take a stand, we have to go into our schools and take a stand. But but also we need bigger systemic change. And I think that's one of the things I've really focused on. And with Food Fix book I wrote last, I really talked about the bigger systemic issues. Because we can do all

Starting point is 00:36:32 we want as parents. But if their kids are seeing 5 billion ads on Facebook, if they're getting 10,000 commercials, if they're targeting poor minorities, if they're using basically mind manipulation techniques to get these kids to become addicted to these foods, if they're using basically mind manipulation techniques to get these kids to become addicted to these foods, if they're using all these cartoon characters. I mean, Disney went so far as to say, we're going to take out all this stuff from the McDonald's, the food. We're not allowing that to happen anymore.

Starting point is 00:36:58 There are companies that are doing it, but we need real serious policy change because our children are so threatened. And I do think we need to go to war to solve this because we are heading towards such a horrible crisis. It's like COVID, right? You say, oh, there's 180,000 new cases. Okay, great. And then the hospitalizations aren't so bad. But three weeks later, the hospitals are full. It's not three weeks with obesity, but it's 10 years, 20 years later. And what's really frightening to me, Liz, is when you look at the data on how these kids do,

Starting point is 00:37:40 not only are they stigmatized as kids, not only are there these social ramifications, but these kids are less likely to graduate high school.'re less likely to get a job they're less likely to have a good career they're less likely to earn a significant income they're less likely to have successful relationships and marriages and it's like wow like this is unconscionable yeah it's unconscionable and and you know mentioned, if you're overweight at a young age, it's just much, much harder to maintain a healthy weight as an adult. And so it's really important for us to deal with prevention and not just then working on, oh, we've got to get the weight down, weight down, weight down as an adult. You want to prevent it from the start. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think we are in a crisis moment. And when I read that stat that one in four teenage boys has diabetes or type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. I mean, how do we live with Ultra Wellness Center here, we deal with all sorts of issues. And I think we deal really well with obesity, really well with childhood obesity,

Starting point is 00:38:49 using a very comprehensive approach of medical evaluations, nutrition consultations, coaching, support. But this is a big, big problem. And I think we all have to take this on seriously as a nation. I agree, Mark. Well, thanks, Les, for again being a guest on The Doctor's Pharmacy. I know this has been not the most uplifting conversation, but we got to have it. We got to talk about it. We got to think about how to solve it. And I encourage people to share about this and their struggles and issues. Leave a comment. Share with your friends and family. We'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you, Mark.

Starting point is 00:39:31 Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introduce to you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health.

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Starting point is 00:40:26 I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search

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The Dr. Hyman Show - Addressing The Root Causes Of Childhood Obesity with Dr. Elizabeth Boham

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