Ep 211: Everyday Risks We Take with Our Teen’s Health

Dr. Robert Lustig, author of Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies
of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine, joins us to
talk about how sugar and processed foods really affect our kids.
Plus, how we can make a shift towards a healthier lifestyle.


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Full show notes


When life gets stressful and busy, convenient processed foods can
be an easy fix. If you’re already late for work and your teen is
scrambling to get out the door in the morning, frozen waffles or
fruit loops are suddenly much more realistic than scrambled eggs
and fruit. When you’re exhausted coming home from work, it can
feel impossible to do anything more than throw some pizza rolls
in the oven for the kids and pour yourself a glass of wine.





But these processed foods aren't just slightly bad for your
health–they can be downright poisonous for you and your family.
The refined sugars and lack of nutritional benefits in these
convenience foods causes serious damage to the digestive system
and contributes to the  development of metabolic diseases
like heart disease, diabetes and more.





If we want to take care of our kids’ health (and our own), our
families have got to start eating better. To learn how, we’re
talking to Dr. Robert Lustig, author of Metabolical: The Lure and
the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine. Dr.
Lustig is an Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics in the division of
Endocrinology at the University of California San Francisco. He
lectures globally about health and is the best selling of several
other books about nutrition.





In our interview, Dr. Lustig and I are covering the surprising
science behind our sugary diets–and why it's so essential that we
change our eating habits. Plus, why our families should be
consuming more fiber, and why today’s kids are so addicted to
junk food.



The Sugar Problem


When we think of sugary foods, we often envision donuts or
candy…but there are all kinds of sugars in processed foods. In
fact they’re usually the number one ingredient, hiding under
names like “high-fructose corn syrup,” says Dr. Lustig.





All this sugar in our diet is causing insulin resistance in our
bodies, Dr. Lustig explains. This means we’re often overproducing
insulin to compensate. As a result, humans are developing kinds
of metabolic health issues–everything from polycystic ovary
syndrome to cancer. All this insulin can also cause us to be
pretty sluggish, Dr. Lustig explains. If your kid is chronically
exhausted, high insulin might be the culprit.





Insulin isn’t all bad! We still need it in our bodies to function
normally, says Dr. Lustig, and without it, we'd have type one
diabetes. But with all the sugar we tend to eat these days, our
insulin levels are a lot higher than they should be, leading to
poor health and chronic conditions. 





While exercise can help improve our health, nothing can fix this
high insulin crisis except changing our diets, says Dr. Lustig.
This is especially true for teens who are still growing and need
all the nutrients they can get! 





So what changes can we make to our diets to bring our insulin
levels down and restore our body’s healthy diets? As you might be
able to guess, cutting out sugary and processed foods is step
one, according to Dr. Lustig. This means cutting out things like
chips, processed breakfast cereals, and soda.





But what about diet sweeteners? Dr. Lustig explains that while
these fake sugars are about half as toxic as sugar itself,
they’re still not a good idea! Teens would be better off cutting
soda and other “sugar-free” treats out altogether.





Once we've cut these foods out, what can we eat instead? One
incredibly important nutrient our families should be eating more
of is fiber! Dr. Lustig and I dive into what fiber actually is
and why it’s so good for us.



The Power of Fiber


You may have heard that fiber is good for you… but what is fiber
exactly? Dr. Lustig explains that fiber is often found in fruits,
vegetables, and pretty much anything else that comes out of the
ground! 





Fiber is especially important because it feeds our microbiome. In
our guts, there are trillions of bacteria that break down our
food and regulate what goes into our bloodstream. Our bodies
don’t absorb fiber the way it typically absorbs other foods.
Instead fiber feeds this bacteria in our guts and keeps our
microbiome healthy.





 Without fiber, our bacteria eats away at our intestinal
lining instead…causing irreparable damage to our digestive
system. This means bad proteins can slip through the gut into the
bloodstream, causing inflammation, leaky gut, and more! 





If we want our insulin to stay down and our digestion to remain
healthy, we’ve got to eat more fiber, says Dr. Lustig. Educating
our kids on why fiber is essential to their health might help
even the most unenthusiastic teens pick up a vegetable or two.





Why is it that kids are so resistant to eating healthy,
nutritious foods? Dr. Lusting and I are diving into this dilemma
in our interview.



Junk Food and Public Schools


If you’ve walked through the cereal aisle at your local grocery
store, you know that most of the sugary, processed products are
covered in cartoon characters and bright colors meant to draw
kids in. And although teens may have grown out of that kind of
stuff, they’re likely still hooked on the cereal inside the
boxes. By targeting young kids, these companies have created an
addiction to sugar that often continues into young adulthood,
says Dr. Lustig.





Our school system isn’t helping, Dr. Lustig explains. Every kid’s
birthday is suddenly a cause for cupcakes, cookies, pizza and
soda….and every day is a different kid’s birthday! Not to mention
that America’s #1 vendor of fast food is the public school
system. Kids are constantly fed fried chicken, sugary drinks, and
processed sweets instead of fresh, healthy food. This is largely
due to the measly budget of $2.80 the government provides for
each student’s lunch!





Junk food in schools isn’t  just causing health problems,
but damaging kids’ cognition! These high-sugar foods starve kids’
cells of nutrients, making it impossible for those cells to
deliver chemical energy to kids’ brains.In the episode, Dr.
Lustig explains how healthy lunches are the key to keeping our
kids focused and active. 





In the Episode…


Dr. Lustig is full of valuable advice! On top of the topics
discussed above, we also talk about…


How sugar affects kids’ teeth

Why we shouldn’t blend fruit into smoothies

Why we need to treat sugar like a drug

How we can make breakfast healthier



If you enjoyed this week’s episode, you can find more from Dr.
Lustig at Robertlustig.com or on twitter @RobertLustigMD. Thanks
for listening, and don’t forget to share and subscribe! We’ll see
you next week.


Sponsored by Equip: Eating disorder treatment
that works—delivered at home. ...