The Dr. Hyman Show - Raising Healthy Eaters

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Kids who have family meals with their families are less prone to bad behavior, risky behavior like eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity. They do better in school, have less ADD. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. They say knowledge is power and that's definitely the case for those of us who are functional medicine doctors or practitioners. We need the right data to determine and eliminate the root cause of our patient's health issues. But that often means ordering a

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Starting point is 00:02:27 And be sure to download their new guide on reclaiming your health with bone broth in 2024. And now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's a pharmacy and I have a place for conversations that matter. And if you have kids and you worry about what to feed them or what they're going to eat or how to get them to eat the good stuff, you're going to like this little podcast, part of our Health Byte series to make small steps in everyday life that make your health better in the long run. So I personally had two kids, raised them. I was a single father and I included them very early in the kitchen. I actually have a video of me and my kids in the kitchen.

Starting point is 00:03:07 I think my son was like 10 months old. My daughter was about two and we were making, I don't know, I think I actually made bread from scratch and they were making such a mess, but they had the best time. And I think it's really important to include your kids in the kitchen early on, not just, you know, present a meal to them at the table, but include them in the entire process from shopping to cooking to setting the table to cleaning up, the whole thing. It's just basic life skills and they learn by osmosis. And when they're little, they love it and they

Starting point is 00:03:35 love to get involved and they want to be with you. So it all works out and you don't have to kind of go off and do the drudgery yourself, but make it a family affair and make it a fun thing. So it's really important. So I know there's challenges. I know that raising kids is hard. I know that getting to eat the right thing is hard. You know, I had a friend who was like, well, all my kids will eat is pizza and pasta. And I'm like, well, that's because it's all you feed them. You know, they're not going to starve to death if you don't feed them that for a while. And they actually will typically be fine and start to eat other foods. So, basically, I used to joke at my house, there was only two things on the menu,

Starting point is 00:04:10 take it or leave it. And so, kids ate what they got and if they didn't like it, they didn't eat it and basically, they weren't going to die or starve to death. So, it's really important to be flexible. It's important to include your kids. It's important to teach them about nutrition and food early on. And I raised my kids to eat well, live well, and they're both very involved in cooking and healthy food. And they really understand. And it wasn't because I pounded into them or gave them lectures. It was because I included them in the process. So I'm going to give you my tips for how I did it and how I think also as a doctor, I've learned how to help families and kids include healthier foods in their diet and actually make it fun. So the first thing is, you know, what to eat.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Typically, you know, in my house there was no bad stuff. Like you couldn't get into trouble. And, you know, one time my son said, I want to have friends over. There's nothing to eat. He was a teenager. And I said, okay, let's go to the grocery store. You can buy whatever you want except for one rule. It can't have hydrogenated fats in it or high fructose corn syrup.

Starting point is 00:05:08 And basically, he almost could find nothing to eat. We did work that out. But it's important to teach your kids about whole foods, seasonal foods, local foods. Go to the farmer's market with them. Teach them about how things grow. And teach them about what real food is. You can teach them to read labels. like have them look at the labels, make it a science project.

Starting point is 00:05:28 Can they actually pronounce what's on there? Do they know what it is? Is it a food or is it just some industrial food product that actually should not be what we're eating? Basically, I always say an almond doesn't have a nutrition facts label or ingredient list. It's an almond. An egg doesn't have one either.

Starting point is 00:05:43 An apple doesn't have one either. So eat real food. And ask your kids your kids you know was this food grown in a plant or was it made in a plant right if it was made in a factory probably not a good idea uh so real food is grown on plants or is is eating plants like when there's animals uh and so less processing less steps taken from field to fork is really important. And you can teach your kids about that. Also ask, you know, ask your kids to try to imagine what this food looked like in its original state.

Starting point is 00:06:12 You know, sometimes it's easy to do, right? If you look at an apple, that's what it looks like on the tree. If you're looking at, you know, something like bread, well, it's a little imagination, but it's not that many steps. You know, grind the flour, a little yeast, you know, a little leavening, and then you get the bread. If it's got 4,000 ingredients, what was the state of that food? There wasn't even a food. So I think it's really important. Also, model the right behavior. By you modeling how you eat, what you eat, all those things, the kids will absorb that and they will understand almost by as most

Starting point is 00:06:45 as what to do. So I always had meals that I cooked. I cooked my kids breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was a working physician. I was a single father. It's possible. I know it was, and I worked really hard, but it's really possible. And it just takes learning the skill like anything else. You know, most people are great at operating their iPhone or their smartphone, but most people don't even have the basic skills of functioning in the kitchen, how to chop a vegetable, how to peel garlic. I mean, just basic skills that if you learn, you could actually learn how to make simple food quickly and easily. So it's also important to understand that routine is important. I made sure that family dinner was a thing every night.

Starting point is 00:07:27 I mean, unless it was some extenuating circumstances. Basically, coming together as a family, sitting down at the table, eating together the same food, and having time to relax and enjoy is a really important thing. There's a lot of research on this. Kids who have family meals with their families are less prone to bad behavior, risky behavior like eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity. They do better in school, have less ADD. So it can be a time for engagement, conversation, for discovery, and for real bonding as a family rather than stress. And today, you know, most families probably don't eat together. If they do, it's, you know, each one eating from a different package or box food, cooked in a microwave, all made in different factories while they're watching TV or on their phones, not talking and not engaging. And that is just bad news for their health and for their emotional health, their physical health, and obviously for your, you obviously for the connection of your family.

Starting point is 00:08:28 Also, boundaries are important. Like I said, my house, there was only two things on the menu, right? Take it or leave it. And so I didn't have kids' food. It wasn't like the adults ate some dinner and then I made a bowl of pasta or macaroni and cheese for my kids. They just ate what we ate, and they learned to love it. And what do kids eat in Japan?

Starting point is 00:08:51 They eat raw fish and seaweed, right? Kids will eat that stuff if there's nothing else to eat, right? They'll actually like that stuff. So it's not that kids won't do it, but if we are giving them kids meals and lunchables and all this targeted junk food that's been focused on children, it's bad news. So make your home a place where you can eat real food together. You're going to get kids exposed to delicious flavors from all sorts of different cuisines. And, you know, if they're picky, they're not going to starve. You know, my mother always

Starting point is 00:09:23 tells the story of my sister who didn't want her eggs, you know, for breakfast. And so basically she said, okay, we don't eat them, but she gave her the same eggs for lunch and she didn't eat them. And she gave him the same eggs for dinner. And she ate the cold eggs from the morning because she was starving. So kids will not starve to death. They will eat. I promise you. Don't coddle them. Don't, you know, dance around them. I mean, I think, you know, it's really important to teach your kids about nutrition and to model the right behavior and have the right approach to eating. And just make sure your kids, you know, make fun foods. You know, you can make fun foods for kids.

Starting point is 00:10:00 There was, I think, a great book that I had for my kids. What was it called? Something's pretend soup. It was called pretend soup. It's a great cookbook by Molly Katzen. And essentially it's all this fun food that you can make with your kids. It's healthy, right? But it's kind of got fun foods that kids like, and it's all made from real whole food ingredients. So, you know, it really keep in mind that if you can make food fun it's great also you know sometimes your kids take a while to get used to things you know if you look at at different flavors you know some kids take a while to adjust to spicier things or different kinds of sourness or sweetness so make sure you give your

Starting point is 00:10:39 kids multiple options to eat the food to try to present it to them multiple times and also make mealtimes fun. Don't make it stressful. Don't make it a time of reprimand. I mean, when I was a kid, my stepfather was just horrible, and mealtimes were so stressful. But I didn't like them, and I wanted to be done as soon as possible. But that's not how it should be. And it led to all sorts of digestive issues for me when I was a kid.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Basically, it went away as soon as I went to college. So the bottom line is make your home fun, make your dinner time fun, make it pleasant, relaxed, and connect as a family. And, you know, think of different conversation topics, keep it light, positive. Being under stress when you eat is not good for digestion, absorption, and your metabolism. And also don't use food as a punishment or as a reward. You know, we tend to go, oh, here, have some ice cream, you know, if you're upset, or here's ice cream if you're going to celebrate something. No, it should not be like that. Occasional treats are fine, but food should not be used to punish or restrict or reward your kids.

Starting point is 00:11:34 It's really important to have a healthy relation with food and teach them from an early age that it's, you know, it's important to have a healthy relationship and not associate with positive or negative reinforcement parenting. I mean, use games or there are other things, non-food related things to discipline your kids or to reward good behavior, but not food. All right. How can you integrate healthy eating into your family's lifestyle? Well, get your kids in the kitchen. Like I said, I always got my kids in the kitchen. I got them cooking with me. I took them to the grocery store with me. We decided them to the grocery store with me. We decided what to eat together.

Starting point is 00:12:07 We looked at recipe books together. We would go shopping together. We would literally cook meals together. I'd make them my little sous chefs, and we would put music on. We'd have fun, and we'd have a great time. So they just want to be connected. The kids just want to be with you, especially when they're little. So it helps build their self-esteem. It helps connection to the family. You teach them basic life skills. I can't tell you how many kids and not even kids,

Starting point is 00:12:32 how many families and people have no idea how to cook. I mean, the American food industry has basically hijacked our kitchens and has usurped our own homes in ways that has caused a massive obesity, diabetes epidemic, and chronic disease epidemic. And it's because we're not skilled in the kitchen anymore and we don't know what to do. So really important. So get your kids involved. Help them plan meals.

Starting point is 00:12:55 Brainstorm about weekly menus. You know, teach your kids about how to compose a healthy plate and what works, right? Like I said, take them grocery shopping and put them on little treasure hunts to go find the good foods and teach them about different foods that are fresh and real. And it's kind of fun. So they obviously should be taught about where to shop and how to shop around the perimeter, but important.

Starting point is 00:13:19 Help them bring the groceries in. Have them, you know, put away everything. Help them just be involved. Get cooking together. You know, they can wash the fruits and vegetables. They can help make simple things. They can track time. They can crack the eggs.

Starting point is 00:13:31 They can toast things in the oven. So as kids get older, they can do better things like that are more advanced, like peeling or grating or cutting veggies. Obviously, you don't want to give a kid a knife. But and then help them part of the serving of dinner. It's really great. Just make them part of an enjoyable dinnertime. Set the table and piece them out placemats and setting the table properly.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Get flour, candles, and just make it fun so you can enjoy stuff. Also, get them in the kitchen cleaning up. Kids obviously don't like that and nobody likes that. But make it fun and have a family cleanup after dinner where kids are involved. So they understand the whole spectrum what happens in creating meals. Also, there's ways to kind of trick your kids a little bit by helping kind of put things into otherwise what we think of as unhealthy foods. For example, you can make carrot muffins or squash muffins or zucchini muffins, right? You can make all kinds of soups and sauces and dips and spreads or smoothies to sort of sneak in healthier veggies.

Starting point is 00:14:33 You can, you know, maybe change the appearance of something. You know, like I had a friend who started a company called Super Sprouts where they would create, you know, Brian Broccoli and Colby Carrot. And they had all these, you know, kind of fun cartoonians for their vegetables or you could cut them up differently. So cut them up as, you know, different shapes or, you know, you've got a little, there's a little kind of cookie cutters

Starting point is 00:14:55 used for Christmas, but you can use those for veggies too and it's fun. So there's all kinds of ways to cut fun shapes into food and turn them into flowers or hearts or letters or stars. It's great.

Starting point is 00:15:05 Also, you can kind of make plate art, make fun things in the kitchen. You can create pictures, designs, fun colors of food, you know, just a pile of turkey, a sweet potato, asparagus. How about making asparagus trees or make a sweet potato a sun or turkey clouds or sort of just create a little art project. It's kind of fun. And that'll kind of make them more interested. Also, you know, make the kitchen an inviting place, right? Kitchens are where they'll hang out. So

Starting point is 00:15:30 make sure it's fun for them and, you know, get little small things so they can do it if they're little. And it's great. So bottom line is you got to get your kids involved in the kitchen early. You've got to get involved in the kitchen. You've got to learn how to cook. And it's going to help one, keep your kids healthy, keep you healthy, keep them out of trouble and solidify your family relationships, connections, which is really important to long-term health and wellbeing. So there's a lot more to this. There's a wonderful book called The Family Dinner by Laurie David, who is really just a wonderful woman who actually helped produce the movie Fed Up that I was in about childhood obesity. And the family does a great, great cookbook about how to cook with your family. There's a lot of others as well.

Starting point is 00:16:14 So I hope you enjoyed this little health bite. I encourage you to get your little chef's work in the kitchen. And maybe they'll be making you dinner soon. My son's a chef now, so he makes dinner for me, which is awesome. And that's it for today's Health Bytes. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to know how you keep your kids healthy and feed them well. We'd love to know what you've learned.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning in to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one. 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 introducing 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

Starting point is 00:16:53 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. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash PICS to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash PICS, P-I-C-K-S and sign up for the newsletter. And I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier

Starting point is 00:17:31 and better and live younger, longer. 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 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 their Find a Practitioner database. It's important you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.

The Dr. Hyman Show - Raising Healthy Eaters

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