Ep 120: How to make parenting around food feel less hard, with Dr Sheila Carroll, Pediatrician and Obesity Medicine Physician

Dr. Sheila Carroll, a board-certified pediatrician and certified life coach, discusses her transition from clinical medicine to helping parents and families navigate childhood obesity and promote healthy lifestyles. She emphasizes the importance of understanding emotional eating and finding natural pleasures as alternatives to unhealthy food choices. Dr. Carroll also provides practical advice on creating healthy shopping lists, reading food labels, and avoiding added sugars. She encourages parents to focus on health rather than weight when discussing these topics with their children and highlights the significance of unconditional love in promoting positive change. 

Takeaways

• Understanding emotional eating and finding natural pleasures can help promote healthier food choices.
• Creating a healthy shopping list, with whole, real foods over processed foods and reading food labels can help reduce the consumption of added sugars.
• Focusing on health rather than weight when discussing food and lifestyle choices with children 
• Unconditional love and acceptance from parents are crucial in supporting children's well-being and promoting healthy habits.
• Genetic factors can contribute to obesity, but lifestyle choices still play a significant role.
• Humans evolved to store fat for survival, but modern lifestyles and abundant food availability work against us.
• Parents have a responsibility to make healthy food choices for their children, even if it may be met with resistance.

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:
Instagram: @AskDrJessica
YouTube channel: Ask Dr Jessica
Website: www.askdrjessicamd.com

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Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Many of us parents have children who are overweight, and it's hard to know exactly how to navigate the issue. Do we ignore the situation for fear of hurt feelings? Or do we address the issue? But then what if we talk about it too much and create a psychological issue for our kids? Here today to answer these questions is Dr. Sheila Carroll, Dr. Carol is a paediatrician and obesity medicine physician and a life coach. And she helps coach parents with children who are overweight. And our ultimate goal is to make parenting around food feel less hard. If you're concerned about your child's weight, and health, and you're eager to make meaningful changes for your family, you are going to want to listen to this episode. And also, before we get started, if you're enjoying this podcast, please take a moment to leave a review and share it with your friends. Thank you so much for helping spread the word I've asked Dr. Jessica, Dr. Sheila, Carol, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. Ask Dr. Jessica. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Jessica. So tell everybody, what do you do for work? Well, I am a board certified paediatrician, I'm also board certified in obesity medicine. I'm a certified life coach, I was just like you a practising paediatrician for about 23 years. And in the past year or so I have transitioned out of clinical medicine as I knew it into a life coach for parents of kids who are struggling with extra weight, and or families that just want to change their lifestyle, to, to focus on health in and figure out all the things that they can do that the parents can do it from a health perspective and a lifestyle perspective that will help their kids thrive. And this is such a pertinent topic, I think, for so many families. So many of us, we read the statistics about obesity and children, we know that there's so much against us with all the processed foods around us, it just seems like such a battle that parents are up against. So I think this is a really meaningful part of medicine that you're working in. Thanks. I really feel drawn to this and, and super passionate about this speak well, for a lot of reasons. But I I'm a mom myself, and you know, we I'm living in this same, you know, stew or mix that we're all living in all of these highly processed foods, all of the screens have a sedentary lifestyle that, you know, is very prevalent. And it's, it's challenging it is it's just a challenge for parents. I'm also super passionate about this as a former child who struggled with my own weight. Since I was about nine or 10 years old, I always carried more weight than I wanted to, I weighed more than I wanted to and I couldn't figure out what to do. I tried everything I was a I was a big athlete, I loved playing sports, I was super active, but the foods that I was eating and the foods we were eating at home, were I was struggling, I was just gaining weight with those. And I was really struggling with that. And, and I now that my age 55 I look back and I think oh my goodness, I wish my parents just didn't know they of course would have helped me had they known, you know, like, oh, we really you know, Oreos, probably not the greatest food to be buying and bringing home, you know, making chocolate chip cookies every day after school, you know? Yes. Wonderful in theory, but horrible for, like my metabolic health and just my health in general. So I want to help. I want to help parents who want to help their kids avoid, like decades of struggle, and, and wasting a lot of mental energy and emotional energy on their weight. And all of the things that go along with this. And I'm just thinking as you're telling your story. I imagine your experience must have played a role in your career choice. Yeah, you know, I ever since I was a little kid I loved I love little kids. So I loved babies. I was a babysitter when I was 10 years old. My dad is a doctor. And so I kind of followed in his footsteps in in a lot of ways and when it came time to choose, I picked paediatrics because I just love I just want to help kids protect kids and try to help them you know help them be as healthiest possible, so they can just be kids and live their childhood lives and not have to struggle with overweight or anxiety or depression or any of these things, you know that are now. We used to see them mainly in adults. And you probably see in your own practice, they're creeping down. They're creeping downward in age and younger and younger kids are getting diagnosed with health problems that used to be reserved for adults. Yes, no, it's true diabetes, obesity, we didn't see these issues as much in children as we do today. So I have to say, I love your perspective, because you are a trained paediatrician, so you understand the medical perspective of being overweight, but then you're also a life coach, and you seem like a very sensitive person, and you have your own life experience. What a nice combination that you can offer to help families as they are navigating how to help their kids that are overweight. Thank you. And for me, my personal like cresting over my problems, the hump of my problem only came about through life coaching. I had been, you know, a doctor for a long time. And I don't know what you learned in medical school. But what I learned was its calories in calories out, you know, eat less move more that I know, there's different models now. But that was what I had learned. And that had that had been my advice to patients for a long time. Yes, I we learned that did you ever learn the five to 105 fruits and vegetables a day, no more than two hours of screen time a day one for one hour of exercise a day and zero for zero sweet drinks. And while that's good advice, it just seems so trite and so formulaic. And it didn't get to the root of the feelings behind eating. So I agree with your education gave us something but not not what I think would really help patients. Yeah, but even if you did five to one, zero, but you ate all the other things. In addition, you know, if you're eating highly processed foods or foods with a lot of added sugars, in addition to that, you're still going to struggle with your weight. Absolutely. So here's the thing, why even as a paediatrician and now I just work with the parents, and not the kids, because this, what you and I were talking about earlier is like the life coaching part of it, or the thinking part of it, the trying to figure out why you're eating something. And the thoughts you're having the thoughts that are creating your feelings and your feelings that are driving your actions of eating or not eating, that's a very advanced meta skill or thinking about your thinking skill, that requires a mature prefrontal cortex that most kids don't have a completely mature prefrontal cortex. We know it doesn't, it doesn't mature until the mid 20s. But parents have that. So for example, if we take emotional eating, that is what's keeping a lot of US adults, or a lot of adults overweight, you know, we eat when we're bored, when we're frustrated, we, when we're happy when we're sad, you know, all the things. And but especially some of those negative emotions, you're it combined with the food supply and the food options that are available to us today. It's not like when you're when you've had a really sad or bad day, you're not probably reaching for you're not going to binge on three apples or you know, you are going probably for something that's a little bit higher sugar content, because of of what that does to our our brain chemistry and the hormones in our brain. And that that's just how we're wired evolutionarily as very ancient human beings, now trying to thrive from a health perspective and thrive metabolically in today's processed food world. And so when you choose say, the ice cream or the bag of Doritos or whatever, you do get some relief from that negative emotion because of the dopamine that gets released in your brain. And it kind of buffers or tamps down your negative emotion. So frankly, you do feel a little bit better. So it works. It's a it's a good strategy, except the health outcome and negative health outcomes. Some people are very frustrated with, oh, I'm gaining weight when you can understand, oh, you know, I feel I'm feeling frustrated or I'm feeling restless, I'm feeling lonely, whatever feeling you're feeling. And then is eating ice cream actually going to solve that problem for me? You know, that food really only solves hunger, true physical hunger. So and so I think this is so valuable, such valuable information to be able to share with parents, because then over there Over the course of their years with their kids, this, you know, however long 18 years 20 year runway you have with your children, if you knew that as a parent, you are going to be able to transmit that message to them. And so they lead into their adult life already knowing, like, Oh, I'm having a bad day, I don't need to reach for alcohol, or get, you know, over scrolling or extra, you know, sugary food or whatever I need to, I need to feel my feelings, and I can feel my feelings. And I know how to do that. And that will really help our human body stay as healthy as possible. I think what you're saying is so profound, and I can relate so much to the idea that our thoughts become our feelings, and our feelings become our actions. I know myself personally, when I was in college, I used to, you know, I was pretty mad, it was very stressful. And I would love to have snacks by me, while I would study having snacks gave me something to look forward to it made studying easier for me. And I remember I would snack on dried mangoes, and I would eat a bag of dried mangoes. And I would have, you know, I look forward to having candy or snacks by my side. And then honestly, within a couple of years, I you know, I kind of look back on this now with admittedly a little bit of embarrassment, but I gained 40 pounds. And I remember my parents didn't know what to do with me. Because here I was, I'd always been, you know, in good shape. In high school, I ran cross country, then I start college and pre med and I gained a lot of weight. And I think it all had to do with the stress behind studying and seeking some enjoyment while I was studying. And so you're right, I had to sort of identify where was this coming from? Why was I feeling hungry? Why was it not satiated with mealtimes and and then I remember going to medical school. And I'm so grateful because I met a friend Her name is Jocelyn, she's been on the podcast before, what she would what she influenced me with was with study breaks, we would take walks together. And instead of sitting and snacking and getting junk food, we would take these nice walks, which I actually started to really enjoy. And I trained myself to look forward to those walks, we would talk we would you know we would talk about life, we would have fun walking, and by the end of the walk, I'd feel that natural hi from exercise or being outside. But you know, it took some time to sort of rewire how I dealt with those feelings. I absolutely relate to what you're talking about. Yeah, that's such a powerful story. Yeah. So when I'm working with my clients, I call that, like the walk that you took would be like a natural flood pleasure. You know, like, you got the pleasure of connection with your friend. And that releases, you know, dopamine and endorphins to in our brain, just not the same, like huge kind of, you know, I call it unnatural pleasure that like, aren't these highly processed foods or this scrolling on on social media or whatever? So yes, really? You know, that's another thing parents can do is to help their kids try to identify and see the, the natural pleasures of life doesn't just have to be about that. Huge, like unnatural pleasure, all the refined sugar coming at them. I think you're right, looking for natural, looking for natural pleasures are trying to brainstorm what to do when you have those feelings, and alternative solution. Right, and not an alternative solution to getting candy and whatever the junk that's calling your name. Maybe. Yeah. And so when parents learn to do that for themselves, then they can help their kids learn how to do that for themselves over time. How can you teach kids to not be emotional eaters? Well, one important way would be to help our kids understand what they're choosing to eat, how their body is actually feeling before they eat it. And after they eat it. Because over time, if you if you're paying attention to that you you might you may find, like Oh, when I eat, you know, whatever put fill in the blank, cotton candy. You know, when I eat cotton candy, I don't, I don't feel that good. Or I'm tired the next day, or I get a little headache or something like that. So that's a super important skill, I think because that's the ultimate goal we want for our kids is this autonomy of them to make their own choice, but they also tie that into their results or their how they're feeling or the result that that gives them and then because then the next time, they'll say oh, last time I ate that I didn't feel so great. So what could I eat instead? Or and so sometimes I think we just eat and we don't really tie it in to how our how our body feels. And there's a really wonderful tool that we can. Sometimes I teach parents to teach their kids depending on the age, but it's called a hunger scale. And you kind of go from like minus 10. To zero being like neutral, you're not really hungry. And then two plus 10 being like the fullest you could ever imagine being. And you know, depending on how your child you know how old they are, and what they can understand, sometimes we use the gas tank analogy like is your tank running out of gas does it need a little bit, and you don't want to, you don't want it to become too full. And you can figure out whatever that whatever that range is for your child. But as an adult, if we can learn as a parent, if you can learn to eat, to satisfy your physical hunger, and not over eat, or emotionally just because it tastes good, or you're enjoying the company, or your and you just keep eating. But if we can listen, learn the skill of listening to our bodies while we're eating. And we parents learn how to do that. And we teach that to our kids. What a wonderful skill that will skyrocket their health for the rest of their lives. Yes, yes. I've tried that with my seven year old that she seems to have amnesia with when too much bad food doesn't make her feel good. or I shouldn't say bad food, but too much junk makes her feel bad. I've tried when she's over eaten brownies or candy and she's complained of stomach aches. I'll say see, next time, maybe we'll have less so your body feels better. But we're still learning. We're still working on it. I wonder I wonder if what you ate have any had anything to do with how you're feeling right now? You know? Yeah, we know you might think she's has amnesia, but she's learning. She's experiencing that she's tucking that away. And my son does the same thing. He's like, I feel great. I'm like, really? It's fine. It's just a learning why I did it as a kid for sure. For sure. It's just, it's all part of skills that they'll they'll that they'll already have. You know, this is what I love is like when parents learn these skills, and teach them to their kids, your kids are going to notice when they're 2020 to 25. You know, they don't need to learn wait till they're 40 or 50 to learn these things. Yes, I think about that all the time that as parents, it's really a gift for our kids if we can teach them better habits as children, so they don't have to think about undoing those habits as they get to be older. Because I do think you form your preferences often as a kid, if you learn to like certain foods and like the way healthy foods tastes, not to say you can't change as you get older, but it just makes it a little easier, I think. Yeah, yeah, you're forming your habits, but you're also forming your identity and your self concept. Oh, I'm a healthy person. Oh, I'm a person who eats healthy food. Oh, I'm a person who moves. I'm a person who gets the right amount of sleep. I mean, these are really powerful. If you see yourself as that. That's who you are. That's what you do. And if your kids sees themselves as that, because you see yourself as that and you and you've helped them see themselves as that, like, that's a slam dunk. It's so true, how much self confidence goes a long way. I'm curious when you talk to parents at first and they ask you advice on what to feed their kids. Do you give them general guidance on what foods to think about what foods to keep in the house? Yes, if they want that, for sure. You know, my general guidance is, is to try to cut back on highly processed foods, the foods with a lot of added sugars. And really I feel like a lot of paediatric overweight or obesity is driven by insulin resistance, which is driven by all the foods and drinks that kids are eating and drinking with all of these added sugars. I think the American Heart Association says a child well child zero to two years old, they recommend zero grammes of sugar a day. So all of those things like those little puffs or those little yoghurts or you know, whatever. If they have added sugars, the recommendation is not to give your child these things under two years old, they should have no food with added sugars. And that's not include. So we're talking about fruit and vegetables. That's not what we're talking about. And then from two years old, to to, uh, to adulthood, you know, somewhere around the tune of six teaspoons or 2425 grammes of sugar a day. So the first place I start with trying to help parents figure out what they should eat, or what they could be serving is to really kind of do a little bit of an audit on what actually what are we eating right now, you know, the truth of the matter is the recommendations that I'm giving families to eat, which would be to really reduce Use that as you know, as much added sugar as possible, and just really switch to kind of whole, minimally processed foods that you're cooking at home, you know, and decreasing seed oil exposure, because that causes whole body inflammation and just eating real food, then that is a great way for any child to eat, no matter what you weigh. I've noticed in some of your writings that you've talked about creating shopping lists for kids. So would that be? So can you explain to parents listening? What would a shopping list look like? For Kids? Like, what is? What is the what is the idea behind doing that? Well, the idea behind doing that as a parent to sit down with your child and talk about the foods that the child likes, and Alright, let's try to get the as many and you could you could start even by writing down every food that your child likes, you know, chicken nuggets, or you know, frozen pizza, you know, and then kind of you know, after you're done with those, you know, the the top the heavy hitters you go to like the vegetables, and which vegetables are they willing to already eat? Which fruit are they willing to already what meat or you know, vegetable, you know, if you're vegetarian. So the whole idea is you just make work in conjunction with your child, because it does help to have your child be part of this. Kids really want to be healthy, they really do. And if you allow them a chance to have some input into what you're going to be serving them and cooking them there, they're more likely to be on board and eat that. So make a food list, then you can really talk about it. Okay, well, let's look at chicken nuggets. You know, for me, I would look at that I would look at the ingredient list, you can go over it with your child. And you could say, you know, these are like a sometimes food for if the ingredient lists are something that you don't want to have, or you look at the added sugars. I think the other thing that parents, it's a really powerful tool for parents is to understand how to read a food label. And you know, for me, it's not so much about the calories, it's more about the added sugars. You know, my friend, my son's friend brought over a Gatorade the other day had 69 grammes of sugar in it in one bottle. So he know the maximum is you're supposed to get in a day is 24 grammes. That's like two, two plus days in 112 ounce bottle. So I think a lot of times parents just aren't, we're just not aware of how much added sugar is in if you look at something like barbecue sauce, or spaghetti sauce, or yoghurt with fruit added or granola bars, some of the things we even think are like, quote, healthy, all the added sugars in them breakfast cereals. They're just they're just not healthy for us. Because when you eat that added sugar, your insulin level goes up. And when your insulin level goes up, then you are in fat storage mode. So you are you can burn whatever you can burn but what calories you're not burning, then you're storing as fat. And the biggest problem is just helping parents understand about fructose. And I think food justice super, super dangerous for kids. It's it's not only neutral, it's like oh, it's just sugar. No, it's actually harmful for your kid for your for you and for your kid. Lactose are high or high fructose corn syrup. They're the same thing. You know, they're actually almost exactly the same thing. High fructose corn syrup is somewhere between 40% fructose or 65%. Fructose it can have it can have varying degrees. And then table sugar, which I think most people don't realise this table sugar is 50% fructose. It's 50% glucose and 50% fructose. So okay, if you avoid things with high fructose corn syrup, great, but you're still getting a big sugar, a big fructose load. If you are eating things with table sugar or any of the other sugars even honey has fructose in it, just to clarify, but fructose is the sugar that comes from fruit. Yes, I don't I try not to limit fruit from kids, but look how it's packaged. So fructose in whole fruit is packaged with fibre. It would take a lot to eat three apples or four oranges, which is what you would be eating or drinking and a little glass which has no fibre. So yes, fruit fructose in fruit is fine. That's not what we're talking about here. Because because your body is designed to handle that, because the fibre slows down the digestion and your liver doesn't have to process the huge fructose load in unless you did somehow eat 10 apples all the ones, then you then you would have a problem with that, you know? So I think what you're saying is not to have added sugars. It's different from sugars that are that are from nature. But fructose that's added we want to avoid. Right, exactly. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah, with my kids, I was always I was hesitant at first to talk about food labels, because I didn't want to draw too much attention to food. You know, I wanted them just to enjoy this blissful childhood where they didn't have to think about food. Like as adults. We've talked about added sugars, and we'll look at labels. And they actually like looking at labels, they look at it. It's almost like a budget, like a financial budget where we say, You know what, you can't go over 25 in a day. So let's make choices. You want the chocolate bar? Well, the chocolate bar has 25 grammes of added sugar. That means tonight, when we have ice cream, you're not gonna be able to have ice cream, because you ran out of your budget. And so watching my kids make these decisions, I actually think they like it, you know, so they'll say, Okay, I'll have a half a chocolate bar. And then tonight, I'll have a small scoop of ice cream. And it empowers them to make overall healthier choices. So I actually have found that going over labels with them has been has been a plus. Yeah, I think that's a wonderful educational tool, too. And super empowering for kids. And honestly, the world that we live in, we have we have if we are going to be teaching our kids to preserve and protect their own good health, they are going to need to learn to read labels, at some point. What I say to my son is just because something's sold, doesn't mean it's actually safe for you, for you to eat safe for your body to eat. They they're selling it, yes. But let's let's look and see, and try to think on purpose. Do we think this is good for your body? That's true. And I, what a nice point you made that kids do want to be healthy, I think we assume as parents that they would rather have the fast food choices or the soft drinks, but education goes a long way they do they do want to be healthy. Yeah, they want to feel good. They want to have energy. And yeah, so I think they want they want food to taste good. And they want to be healthy, we can make healthy foods that our kids will eat and will like to eat. And I think that's such a helpful point. Because so often I find the conversations with families and children about eating is focused around what they should not eat. It's a lot of nose. You know? No, you can't have that. No, you can't have that. And what I love about the idea of a shopping list, and keeping plentiful good foods in the house that kids like to eat, is there's less of this negative talk around food. I'd like to have more more more positive experiences more Yes. So that kids don't feel like they're wanting for food, or they're looking for food, they can feel satisfied with what's at our house. Yeah, I agree. So when you shift away from, you know, feeling deprived, or feeling restricted into Oh, I, I could eat that if I want to, but I don't want to I want to eat this because I like how it makes my body feel. I like the results I get when I eat it. I have a lot of families where their children are a little overweight, and they're not sure how to talk to their kids about weight, or should they talk to their kids about weight? So what is your recommendation for families? When parents come to you and they're concerned about their children being a little overweight? How should they talk to their children? In general, my recommendation is, I don't even think we need to use the word weight when we're talking to kids. If they're older teenagers, then you know, if they're specifically like, I want to talk about my weight, okay, let's talk about it, you know, but with younger kids, and in even with the older kids, what my I recommend focusing on health. And yes, this is these are the things that we want to do to stay healthy, or to you know, kind of preserve our health. And, and you don't need to talk about weight, because there's a lot of really unhealthy ways to make the scale go down. Right? If all we care about is weight, or what size clothes you're wearing, you can get there pretty unhealthy in a lot of unhealthy ways. And that is the exact opposite of what we want. We want to raise healthy eaters who have a wonderful relationship with food, who know how food works with their body, and who eventually as they age step into their autonomy and their role of I'm choosing to eat this because I want because I think it's gonna keep me healthy. I like the way I feel it tastes good. And I know what's good for me. And so I I like talking about health, because it's not no one feels bad when you say well, we let's try to be healthy. You know, you know when I was a little kid the focus was on weight. Eat and trying to lose weight for me to lose weight. And I felt bad about that it really, it hurt inside, it was embarrassing. It was shameful. Oh, I just I didn't even I, I was so little, I didn't even know what to do with all of that, you know all of those feelings. It's true. And then you're probably hyper focused on a number, and thinking that a number will make things better in your life. And that's not really fair for a kid. No, it's not, it's not. And it's not the number that we care about. You know, I think, you know, when kids overweight or obese obesity, and depending on you know, which whatever number you're looking at, it's kind of a marker, you know, of how your body's responding to multiple different things, not just food, but your sleep, your movement, your stress management. So it's, it's like a symptom of a bigger issue. I think that, like, the real problem itself, the problem is not the number on the scale. But, you know, let's, let's try to really look at all of the lifestyle factors that are gonna get you feeling great. And II, you know, for me, like, if you are, you know, if you fought somebody out on the scale, or whatever, and their BMI is a little bit elevated, but they have tonnes of energy, they're growing well, they're sleeping well, they're eating healthy food, they're, you know, what I'm, you know, and they're thriving, okay? And then parents can keep an eye on that, and just keep reinforcing all the good behaviour, all the good, all the good things that they're doing. I don't think that we're going for a number to me at least. No, I, as you're talking, I'm thinking, you know, even though I'm a paediatrician, and literally every day, I'm weighing kids, and I'm looking at their growth percentages and their weight percentages. My own children, I honestly do not know what they weigh. We don't have a working scale in our house. I mean, conveniently, the batteries run out, I have no idea what they weigh. I don't ask them about weight, I don't want to put it in their head, I think. So. The conversations in our home are really about health. To your point, we talk about growing foods, foods that make you feel good foods that will help you go to the bathroom with ease, will help your tummy feel good will help you feel strong. Be a fast runner, be a better athlete. That's really how we talk about it. And I think it's true, what you're saying it doesn't really matter matters. Do they feel healthy? Are they healthy? Yeah. Mentally and physically? Right, exactly. Do you find that in your venture to work with families? Are you finding a lot of success? Yeah, in multiple different ways. And this is what's you probably find this the same way. This is one of the rewarding things about working with families or being a paediatrician, you know, I'm seeing success. from a health perspective. Yes. Oh, they this family has made these changes that I know are gonna benefit them from a health perspective, sometimes lab, you know, sometimes we can track things via labs, and we're like, oh, they're, you know, their liver enzymes improved, or their fasting insulin improved, you know, so then some days, we're like, oh, yeah, like check, you know, on the on the actual numbers, but sometimes it's, oh, well, we're just getting more sleep, or oh, we have these stress, you know, skills, breathing skills, or stress reduction skills that now the kid the child has learned. And the other thing that I really love to work on with families is the parents and the child's relationship. And the parent and the child feeling so connected. And making these changes from a place of already the parents fully accepting, first of all the parents fully accepting themselves because lots of times we parents have ended up with some guilt, or shame or regret, oh, how did I, how did I? How did I feed my child like this? So now they're slightly overweight? Or how did I feed them? You know, I should have, I should have done better. I couldn't, you know, so first thing is we work on, okay, let's edit, get a get, you know, some understanding about that we are doing the best that we can and have a relationship with ourselves as a parent. And then before changing anything for the child, to have the parent really have the true deepest belief that their child is already perfect, already valuable. 100% valuable, 100% worthy, just as they are. They don't need to lose weight, to be better to be a better person to be more acceptable to be whatever. You know, that's so we start from this place of like, all right, for a parent to really get to the place of accepting us lots of times As parents, we want our kids to be slightly different than they are. And there's, that's, that's fine, we can want them to grow, we can want them to change, that's fine. But what you know, when kids get when kids look at their parents, and they see reflected back to them, this person gets me, this person loves me for who I am right now. It's like a mirror that they're looking in, and they're seeing, like, goodness, and love reflected back to them, it's so much easier to be willing for a child to be willing to make any change at all, or to be open to the change, because they don't feel like they have to change to be accepted or loved or valued by their parent. See what I'm saying, that's so powerful. No, I think that's so powerful. It's true, people want to feel like they're getting loved unconditionally, not not loved if I do this, this or that, but as loved for who they are as they are, right? It's the same idea with kids, especially with their parents, they want to feel like they're gonna love them as they are. Even though I think when parents might say something like that, they do totally love their child, you know, it's, it's not bad. And some of it is fear based, like, Oh, I'm worried if you gain weight, you, you know, X won't get asked to the prom, won't get married, won't get on the sports team, you know, whatever. So sometimes I fears say things out of fear. So we I work a lot with parents to just kind of become aware of what thoughts they're actually having, and how that's making them feel. And, you know, and because we know, like we said, already, our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions. So our thoughts and our feelings are so powerful, to what we do. And, you know, you can do, you can do the same thing. But if it's coming from two different places, for example, you know, you could have a salad, you know, or, you know, we'll just, we'll just go back to food, if you're feeling like I have, I'm punishing myself, I feel like I need to restrict myself fine, I'm going to have a salad. So that's, you know, you're taking action from a feeling from a kind of a negative feeling. And you might not enjoy eating that salad. But if you feel if you have the feeling like, Oh, I'm committed to my health, or I'm, you know, I want to eat these vegetables, because I want all the vitamins and minerals, you know, you eat that salad, you're gonna have a different experience of eating that salad, then it's the same thing, you're still eating a salad, but you're coming at it from a different feeling. And so that's what we need to really work on as parents when we're helping our kids. Or we're making these changes for our family. Because we want to make sure we're coming at it from a feeling of, well, commitment, you know, living our values. Hopefully, health is one of the family values and you know, coming at it from a place of just trying to help your kid and, and keep them as healthy as possible from a place of love. I think that's such a great point. You can you can want your kids to get better, because you want the best for them. Like, like, I want my kids to be a little more polite, or say please or thank you. I think it's fair for parents to want to mould their kids to be the best human beings they can be. But also, they deserve to feel unconditional love from their parents. And as a parent that feels the best. Yeah, for sure to let your kids really know and feel that you're there for them no matter what is so important. I've never thought about that point. In terms of connecting it to childhood obesity and what they eat, but you're it's a really good point. It's a great point. Really, I mean, this is such a deep topic. It's not just food. I mean, you know, for me, for me, in my experience in my life overweight, my being overweight, it really wasn't about food. Yes, my when I made some food choices when I'm like learned, Oh, I gotta keep my insulin level low. Oh, I should be eating less sugar. Like, yes, that was super important for me and a game changer. But really, it overweight is not about food. It's about how we feel about how we feel about ourselves. One of my coaches says to her clients, she says you don't have a overeating problem. You have an under feeling problem. And wow, yeah. And it's, it's, it's true. You know, when you're when you're like overeating, even a few extra bites or, you know, going for the emotional eat like eating food that we already talked about. It's it's because we're not willing to feel Whatever feeling is there, you want the food to take the feelings away? Right? Right, right. And the society and the food culture that we live in, has made that easy for us. And as made that more than easy, they actually tell us, it's good for us. So, you know, so now we have this, we're living in this world where we have a lot of stress, there's just so many things going on in everybody's life. And I have some parents who are like, Well, my, my child's got a pretty good, they're, they're not that stressed. But kids are stressed, you know, in their, in their own way. And, and, and, and so we live in this world now where the food supply and the screens, make it easy to buffer or numb, numb some of those negative emotions, to our ill effect, it would be fine if we ate out and it wasn't caught wreaking havoc on our system. You know, the thing is these very ancient human bodies that we are living in, we weren't designed to handle today's modern, highly processed foods. I also found for myself, you know, I, when I was when I was overweight, in my late teens, early 20s, I thought a lot more about food. And I think it was a vicious cycle, the more weight I gained, the more I thought about losing weight. And it kept going like that, where now I'm at a point in my life, I just don't think about it as much, it just feels a lot healthier. You know, ever, ever since I went got through that period, thankfully. I don't think as much about food. I mean, I think about when I'm hungry. And sure I like to eat and go out to eat, but it's a much different. It takes up much less mental space in my life. Yes, for me, too. And what I think one thing, one huge part of this is that we know from putting people in fMRI scanners and tracking people's hormones, if you are carrying extra weight, extra adipose tissue, your hunger hormones are different than if you were at a lower weight. And so you are hungry or you are thinking about food more. Your brain does light up in a different way. And so that's what makes it so hard. overweight people are hungrier. You know. And because the fat tissue is hormonally active, we used to think like, oh, it's just it's just fat tissue. It does nothing. It just sits there. But now we know that that's incorrect. No question for you. There's a lot of families that I meet where genetically there's obesity in the family. What advice would you get for a family like that? Well, there's Yeah, I do think for sure. Some people gain weight more easy, easier than other people. Yes. But what is that saying? I don't know who said it first. But somebody said, genetic genes load the gun and your lifestyle pulls the trigger. I don't think people are destined to be overweight, or destined by their genes to be overweight. There's a really wonderful science writer, Gary Tobs. He's written some really amazing books. And he has this great phrase that he says, those of us who fan easily, which I kind of got a kick out of that when I read that, because I was like, oh, that's me. You know, and I think it is true. So you know, way back in the day, we would have been the survivors, we would have been the people who stored weight easily and made it through the winter, we would have we would have been killing it back then. But today, Oh, okay. Now I have this metabolic system, these genes in 2023. Okay, how am I going to figure out how I need to live? How am I going to eat? How am I going to sleep? How am I going to move? How am I going to manage my stress to be the healthiest version of myself that I can be? I love that. And it's so true when you go to museums and you see pictures of people in the 1700s. And the royalty was always a little bit on the heavier side. It was a sign of health or Wow, there's so many good books. Dr. Richard Johnson has written this really wonderful book called nature wants us to be fat. And you know, when you read this book, what he really explains in a very easy to understand way is that how humans evolved. storing fat was good for us. It helped us survive. You know, the cold winters before we had houses before we had all these modern amenities. The problem is now you know, we've had this modern lifestyle explosion and the past 100 years her jeans haven't changed at all. I think understanding that and then you can, then you can drop some of your shame and drop some of you're like, oh, there's must be something wrong with me. No, it's just the wonderful human body that you've been given. And you know how your body happens to work, you're not broken, no kid is broken, no adult is broken, your metabolism, not metabolism is not broken. And you can certainly make changes and certainly get the health you want by by changing your lifestyle. Dr. Carol, if people are listening, and they hopefully are inspired, and love what you have to say, and want more of your guidance, where can they find you? Um, I have a website, Sheila Carroll md.com. Um, that would be the easiest place, my email is right on there. I have actually a free guide I created for parents to It's called How to Make parenting around food feel less hard. And it's a it's a kind of an in depth in depth explanation of the division of responsibility. Are you familiar with that Ellen Sanders, Division of responsibility, and, and why it's important to choose whole regular Whole Foods. So that's available for free on my website, too. And I have a blog there too. So just raising parents awareness, of the importance of trying to choose whole real food versus processed food. And a quick point to add to that, I think it's important for parents to realise that by choosing those foods, they're not, it's not bad for the kids, I think a lot of parents are afraid to say no to their kids, they're afraid to disappoint their kids. But in the long run, it really is the best for kids, and they will come to appreciate it with time. 100% It's kind of like, you know, what I say is, it's like, asking your child are telling your child to put their seatbelt on, they might not want to put their seatbelt on. But you know, as the parent, it's the safest thing for your child. And so yes, sometimes some kids are gonna kids are definitely going to push back. That's the nature of kids. And it's just the human brain. The human brain is like, but you're taking away something that tastes so good for me. And you knew, Okay, well, let's have it once in a while, but not as much, because we're really trying to protect our health. So when parents really come at food choices from a health perspective, and not just pleasing your child perspective, you know, I think that that is going to be the way to, for parents to really step in and own what they control what they can control to help their kids. Well, thank you so much. This is so much fun. I love chatting with you. And anybody that sees you as a coach, we could talk all day. Can you be my coach? Yeah. Anyone that anyone that sees you as a coach, they're so lucky. And I'm so glad to know about you. And thank you for helping all the people that you help. Thank you, Dr. Jessica. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica See you next Monday.