Episode 161
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode, Dr. Joel Warsh joins me to discuss the alarming rise in chronic illnesses among children, including autoimmune conditions.
We explore how lifestyle factors like diet, toxins, and stress contribute to health issues and offer practical advice for parents to improve their children's wellbeing.
Introduction
Dr. Joel Warsh, a pediatrician with an integrative approach, shares his insights on the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases in children. He emphasizes the importance of addressing lifestyle factors to prevent and manage these conditions.
Episode Highlights
The Rise of Chronic Illnesses in Children
Dr. Warsh discusses the alarming increase in various health issues among children.
- Autism rates have risen from 1 in 25,000 to 1 in 36 (1 in 22 in California)
- Type 2 diabetes, once rare in children, now has an average onset age of 13
- 33% of kids have diabetes or prediabetes
- 50% of kids are overweight or obese
The Role of Lifestyle Factors
Dr. Warsh explains how modern lifestyle choices contribute to health problems.
- Poor nutrition and lack of nutrients
- Exposure to environmental toxins
- Sedentary lifestyle and lack of movement
- Chronic stress from academic and social pressures
The Importance of Real Food and Cooking
The discussion emphasizes the significance of preparing meals at home.
- Cooking allows control over ingredients and nutrient content
- Family meal preparation fosters connection and teaches life skills
- Gradual changes in diet can lead to significant health improvements
Reducing Toxin Exposure at Home
Dr. Warsh offers practical tips for creating a healthier home environment.
- Use air purifiers and plants to improve indoor air quality
- Install water filters for cleaner drinking water
- Choose natural, eco-friendly products for cleaning and personal care
- Read labels to avoid harmful chemicals in household items
Encouraging Movement and Reducing Stress
The conversation touches on the importance of physical activity and stress management.
- Incorporate daily family walks or active time
- Choose stairs over elevators when possible
- Address academic and social pressures that contribute to childhood stress
- Focus on overall wellbeing rather than solely academic achievements
Notable Quotes
"What is going on is our lifestyle is so crappy and not built in the way that we're meant to live. And so for kids, especially, but adults too, we're not getting the nutrients that we need. We're being exposed to so many chemicals and at some point our body cannot handle that."
Dr. Joel Warsh
"We have to get back to it. We have some boundaries within reason. And like what you said is exactly, exactly true. And I, and I definitely echo that often because, you know, we're not trying to punish our kids with their food by saying like, Oh, you can never have a snack. No, we're trying to give them healthier versions of foods that they like."
Dr. Joel Warsh
Other Resources:
Connect with Joel Warsh
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Joel Warsh:[00:00:00] I'm just saying this has to be a priority if you want to have a healthy family and you can choose not to do it. That's your choice. But if we don't know where what our food is and we don't prepare food consistently, you are going to be sick and your kids are going to be sick.
Joel Warsh: So if that's not what you want, then we need to figure out how do we prioritize this? How do we put it into our day? How do we find more time to cook?
Joel Warsh: We all have choices of what we do, and so it's just gotta be one of the choices. This is something that's super important if you want to have healthy kids
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michaelson. Today. We're joined by Dr. Joel Warsh, AKA Dr. Joel Gator of the popular parenting Instagram account. Joel is a board certified pediatrician in Los Angeles, California, who specializes in parenting wellness and integrative medicine.
Julie Michelson: He's the author of parenting at your child's pace, the integrative pediatrician's guide to the first three years. In today's conversation, we're talking about what's going on with kids health today and why chronic illness, including autoimmunity, is on the rise at a frightening pace. Best of all, we discuss what to do about it by addressing lifestyle factors in order to reverse the trend and create a healthier generation.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Joel, welcome to the podcast.
Joel Warsh: Thank you for having me on.
Julie Michelson:[00:02:00] I'm so excited. First of all, you are, yay, I think the first pediatrician who's been on the podcast. Um, and if this were 20 years ago, people would be like, why would you have a pediatrician on an autoimmunity podcast? Um, but it's not so welcome.
Julie Michelson: I'm excited for our conversation. I was just kind of gushing over you before I hit record that I just really appreciate. Your work and, and just the, the kind of openness you show up with for at least your audience on Instagram, which is where I know you from most. Um, so I'm thankful you're here.
Joel Warsh: Well, thank, thanks for having me on.
Joel Warsh: And I guess it's good to be here, but I guess not so good. I mean, I, I, I, I hate what you're saying. And I guess, of course, it is actually. useful, unfortunately, because yeah,
Julie Michelson: well, and, and so we need these conversations, um, so that we can change the trajectory a little bit. So, but I would love to find [00:03:00] out how I was just saying, you know, audience listeners, no, my, my kids are grown.
Julie Michelson: Um, but you know, how did you get into the, this integrative, what I would call kind of functional medicine approach to pediatrics?
Joel Warsh: Yeah, most people get into integrative medicine, I think, because they had some sort of life thing that happened to them, health complication and medical really helped them. And then they found something else that that wasn't really my story.
Joel Warsh: I mean, I'm luckily been pretty healthy, knock on wood. But for me, when I was going through training, I got really frustrated with medications for everything and seeing a million patients all the time and seeing kids getting sicker and sicker and also seeing people go outside of the system and getting better and starting to wonder what that is.
Joel Warsh: Also meeting my now wife at that time who's very holistic minded too. So all these things really open up my eyes to what else is out there. And once you step outside the regular medical system a little bit, you [00:04:00] start to realize like, Oh, this is not that good. This is not crazy. Like, why are we not thinking about food?
Joel Warsh: Of course these things make sense. Like, you know, there's nothing that, I mean, you can get pretty woo woo if you go into integrative medicine, but that's not what it is. I'd be not for the really just. thinking about the foundations. And so that's really what led me into integrative medicine because there was no way to go back.
Joel Warsh: I know you're asking before about Dr. Gator. So that's my wife's last name. Actually, it's Intelligator. Um, and people thought that was funny. So it kind of stuck. It's not a Florida thing. Everyone thinks it's a Florida thing. Nothing against Florida. I grew up in Toronto, but it's a wife thing.
Julie Michelson: That's funny.
Julie Michelson: That's, I know, I was confessing. Oh, no, your real, real name was Dr. Warsh. So, um, I, and it is true kind of once your eyes are opened, you, you really can't, I mean, your box got bigger, right? Why would you go back smaller? And I was kind of giggling because for the past 20 plus years, I've lived in Colorado and I lived right outside of Boulder, moved from originally in the Northeast via Florida, um, to [00:05:00] Colorado.
Julie Michelson: And really thought the, whether, you know, woo woo granola, just a lot of the lifestyle in Boulder. I'm not talking about the marijuana or
Joel Warsh: just 20, no, just healthy living
Julie Michelson: 20 years ago. A healthy living, real food, raw milk. Like these things that I remember thinking like, these people are nuts. And I remember, you know, the more I learned and have evolved, it is like, oh.
Julie Michelson: No, they were right. So yeah, you can get as woo woo or whatever, but, but there is a natural state that humans are supposed to be in, which leads me to one of the reasons I was so excited about our conversation, um, is because. not only autoimmunity, but yes, autoimmunity, all kinds of chronic health challenges are on the rise in kids in astounding numbers.
Julie Michelson: In the nineties, I worked at a university that had a [00:06:00] school for autistic children. Um, it was rare back then, right now it's not rare. So what is going on here?
Joel Warsh: Yeah, I think it, it is really important to set the stage for what we're seeing these days, especially for those that don't have kids or really aren't, you know, in the loop on it, because I think it's all relevant, regardless of whether we talk about kids, because it's really very similar for adults and kids and humans.
Joel Warsh: And, you know, when we talk about kids and we talk about the stats, like you talk about autism, you know, back. 50 years ago, 100 years ago, it was like 1 in 25, 000, 1 in 1, 000, then it was dropping to 1 in 100, now it's like 1 in 36 or so is the statistics, 1 in 22 in California, so like those numbers are increasing at a staggering rate.
Joel Warsh: Autoimmune conditions, basically everyone. It's going through the roof. A lot of things we never saw in kids we're seeing in kids now. I mean, the easiest example to really drive that point home is diabetes, right? I mean, type two diabetes called adult onset diabetes, because you didn't see it in kids, [00:07:00] uh, ever, you know, when you were, you know, even for me in my career, I'm not like that old or anything, but it wasn't something that you really talked about, like even 10 or 15 years ago and kids, because It's more of a lifestyle thing.
Joel Warsh: And we all kind of accept that for type two diabetes. It's like, you know, if you change up your, your diet, if you're not eating that healthy, if you move a little bit more, we can see those numbers improve. We can, you know, not, not consider ourselves to have that condition anymore, most of the time, but that used to be for adults.
Joel Warsh: Now the average age of onset is 13 and 33 percent of kids have diabetes or prediabetes. 50 percent of kids are overweight or obese. Um, autoimmune condition numbers, you know, uh, And they even want to include like, um, you know, just all the different things that we're seeing, but then also anxiety, mental health, uh, depression, uh, asthma, uh, allergies.
Joel Warsh: I mean, all of these things that were very rare, of course they existed before, but they were very rare. And yes, some people want to point to, we're better at diagnosis. Of course we are, we are better at diagnosis. So that's a small part of it, but you don't go from it's a really [00:08:00] small part of housing one in 20 or one in 30.
Joel Warsh: In, in, you know, a couple of decades that the, the way we're diagnosing hasn't changed that much in the last 20 years. I mean, it certainly has changed in the last 50 years, but, but that's not what's going on. It's just a small part of it. What is going on is our lifestyle is so crappy and not built in the way that we're meant to live.
Joel Warsh: And so for kids, especially, but adults too, we're not getting the nutrients that we need. We're being exposed to so many chemicals and at some point our body cannot handle that. And then it falls off a cliff and it expresses itself in different ways, depending on your genetics, depending on your environment.
Joel Warsh: And that might be an autoimmune condition. That might be autism. That might be a mental, whatever it is. I think it just expresses itself in different ways. Sure. That's a lot of what we're seeing. Absolutely. I'm just, you know, stepping back. There are some genetic conditions. There are some things which have, you know, probably very little to do with environment, but you can still improve your environment and help your symptoms.
Joel Warsh: But I think the majority of what we're seeing and the majority of this explosion is because of our [00:09:00] environment because our genetics haven't changed that much in the last 50, 100 years,
Julie Michelson: right, right. And I love that that you highlight that even if you have genetic predispositions. For things we can modify those lifestyle factors and, and turn that back off.
Julie Michelson: Or as you said, improve symptoms so that they become like a non event. I love that you pointed out with diabetes. That's kind of the easiest one. I hear it all the time. Well, my mom has diabetes and my grandma had that, you know, and it's like, okay, are y'all eating together though? I'm curious, do you live together?
Julie Michelson: It's not necessarily genetics, just because a family shares it. We
Joel Warsh: have to expand the definition. Like, you know, you, you, you work with and talked about a lot of autoimmune conditions. And I think we need to expand that type one and type two to almost all of these conditions, including autism, because I think there are some versions of a lot of these things that are, you know, very much a genetic thing.
Joel Warsh: Component. And then there are other versions of it that are a very small genetic component. Maybe you're a little more susceptible, but [00:10:00] it's the lifestyle that pushes it over the edge. And I think if we separate it in that way, we can take our power back and we can start, you know, like type two celiac disease, type two, like whatever it is.
Joel Warsh: Right. I mean, I think that there is certainly a huge lifestyle component for many people. And if you. Can kind of separate that out. Then maybe we're going to take our power back as opposed to million. Well, I guess it's just the way that it is. I guess I'm just saying take this medicine.
Julie Michelson: It's defeating and as a parent and my kids shocker, um, you know, while I was in the midst of my down my decline with with rheumatoid arthritis and all my other diagnoses, you know, my kids started getting diagnosed with things right.
Julie Michelson: Um, and so it is about empowerment. That's why we're having the conversation and it's not about shaming or finger pointing or. One of my favorite things working with parents of young children is the downstream effect, right? If I'm [00:11:00] working with a mom to reverse her symptoms or get, you know, as, as much under control as possible, I, my hope, grand hope, and should be, is that her kids aren't going to be seeking out somebody like me in their adulthood to backtrack and correct the things that, that set the spiral in motion to begin with.
Julie Michelson: And that's. Exciting. That is empowerment. And so as a parent, you want to know like, okay, to me, the diagnosis is the label for the symptoms, right? Like none of it answers the question, why is this happening? Right. And so it is empowering as, as a parent to be able to say, I can help my kid. Um, and, and it always, it's interesting.
Julie Michelson: I'm guessing you see this with parents a lot too. Oh, it's hard. Oh, my kids aren't going to eat that way. Oh, my kids don't, you know, Um, whatever, fill in the blank. And it's like, actually you're the parent, if that's the food on the [00:12:00] table, like they may skip the first meal they're going to eat. We're animals when it comes down to it, when we get hungry, we're going to eat what's there.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and it's not a punishment for kids to eat. I don't think to eat real food and, and learn to nourish their bodies.
Joel Warsh: No, it's it's absolutely not. And that's called parenting. I mean, we have to get back to it. We have some boundaries within reason. And like what you said is exactly, exactly true. And I, and I definitely echo that often because, you know, we're not trying to punish our kids with their food by saying like, Oh, you can never have a snack.
Joel Warsh: No, we're trying to give them. Healthier versions of foods that they like. And that means some experimentation, some figuring out what will work, but it doesn't mean you have to go from chips to broccoli. It means that
Julie Michelson: you're
Joel Warsh: going to get a bag of chips. You read the ingredients, you pick the better bag of chips, right?
Joel Warsh: Make rid of the really crappy, you know, cookies and Oreos whatever, and you pick, there are a lot of other versions of things out there, and there's also a lot of other snack food that you can [00:13:00] purchase, make, um, that's quite healthy and they're going to love it too. They might fight you at first. But if it's actually really good, they're not gonna fight you.
Joel Warsh: If they, you know, maybe they're gonna love, uh, carrots and peanut butter or something like, I, I don't know what it is. They're gonna love middle of the road. Yeah. Bad. You can, you can find them good food. That's a lot more different. Make them an, an
Julie Michelson: analog, you know,
Joel Warsh: and, and, and that's our job. Like our job is to keep them healthy, to make them resilient.
Joel Warsh: And it doesn't matter that you're, you know, I mean, I get it. People are busy. Things cost money. Like that's all true. But we wanna have healthy kids, so we have to prioritize our health. As well. And if it's not part of the equation, then our kids are going to be sick. And that's just how it is. I mean, one or two kids have a chronic disease right now.
Joel Warsh: And if you're okay with that, then it's fine. If everyone can make their own choices of what they want to do. But if you don't, then you want to give your kids the best chance to be healthy. The world is a toxic place to begin with. There's only so much that we can work with. So we have to do what we can within what we can do.
Joel Warsh: And that is the part that's up to us. And it makes a [00:14:00] huge difference because. The little things add up, you know, it's not like one piece of cake is going to be the end of the world, give you an autoimmune condition, but if you're eating the dye, the chemical over 10 years, then that adds up in your body, add that with every other thing, and eventually they can't handle it, but if you start to take away a few of those things, our bodies are amazing, they can handle a lot, and that's what they do.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's always this tipping point, right? So it doesn't mean, I always say, you know, perfection doesn't really exist and it's not sustainable. It's, it's that, you mentioned the word foundation and I do believe that is our job as parents is to create foundations, whether it's health, faith, just values, all of it.
Julie Michelson: Then they go out, they, you know, minor, all adults, they, they've made their own choices. Those foundations are still really evident. Um, and so, and I, like people think I joke, I was not born a health coach, right? Like people are like, Oh my gosh, you used to eat junk [00:15:00] food. Yes. I used to eat junk food. I used to eat stuff that I would never put in my mouth now, because I know better.
Julie Michelson: I'm not saying that wouldn't, that wouldn't work. You know, it probably wouldn't taste good, but it did taste good at the time. So we go through this. I went through, um, and you work with a lot of parents. When my oldest was diagnosed with celiac, that became when he was 12, that became the beginning of my actual healing journey.
Julie Michelson: Shocker. Cause we changed the food in the house. Um, and I remember like literally feeling guilty that he was a middle school boy, you know, hardest time of his life. Um, maybe hopefully at least, you know, and that he wasn't going to be able to eat the Oreos and the crap. Right. I literally did. And I had a, we were just talking about it at family dinner on Sunday.
Julie Michelson: We had, I had a gluten bin. Because I felt like, well, it wasn't fair to the other two. They don't have celiac. And [00:16:00] now I'm like, what they tease me all the time. They're like, thanks for like, continuing to give us the poison, you know, um, or I'll work with parents who they'll, they'll get, you know, the grass fed meat for themselves and give their kids the, and I'm like, wait, I don't understand.
Julie Michelson: Don't you love your children? So we need to let go of the guilt. The, the, we're creating change for children. Um, I, that's one of the reasons I get so excited about what you do, because I think, Oh my gosh, if people can learn this before they get pregnant, even they, you know, then they're just there. It's just a home run.
Julie Michelson: I'm not saying nobody will ever get sick, but. Right,
Joel Warsh: right. No, that, and that's exactly why I wrote the book for the age range that I did. Cause I just came up with parenting at your child's pace and it's a book for zero to three year olds. Um, and. You know, I get asked a lot about like, why did I choose that age range?
Joel Warsh: Why didn't I go farther? You know, and, and I mean, there's just so many questions that new parents have, but a big focus of what I wanted to do. And one of the reasons I got into pediatrics in the first [00:17:00] place was to help kids prevent disease. It's not what's going on in medicine. These days, everything is treatment and treatment is great.
Joel Warsh: I mean, we need treatments too, but we have to prevent these things. So they don't end up in our offices. They don't end up needing an autoimmune coach, so they don't end up an integrative practitioner, you know, trying to get ahead of it. And so a lot of.
Julie Michelson: We're an integrative practitioner is just what we think of as a practitioner.
Joel Warsh: Our goal should be, let's talk about how we build a healthy child, build a resilient child. Let's talk about the foundation. So that way you can set that up from day one. So you're going to minimize the risk to be sick. No matter what you do, you can be the healthiest person in the world. You can still get sick.
Joel Warsh: You can still get cancer. These things happen. You could be the least healthy person in the world and smoking and drinking every day and live to 120. These things happen,
Julie Michelson: but my grandmother perfectly pickled herself. Like literally I, she was pickled preserved, like just, and not sick. For most
Joel Warsh: people, for most kids, if you Live the regular American way.
Joel Warsh: You're going to have a chronic condition. You're going to [00:18:00] be on multiple medications. If you don't live that way, you won't. I mean that like, we know this, we know this pretty clearly. We can look at the places around the world that live the longest that are the healthiest. I mean, we know what that involves and yet we're not doing it.
Joel Warsh: And, and therefore it is up to us to start to take back our control. And again, like you said, it's not about shaming. It's not about blaming. It's not about feeling bad. It's not about feeling overwhelmed. I try to minimize stress when I talk, I try to minimize overwhelm because it's, it's not about everything.
Joel Warsh: It's just about making conscious choices. To be healthy to start learning about some of this stuff to start making choices with This in mind and prioritizing your health and one little thing at a time wherever you are If you never cook cook a meal a week If you cook one meal a week cook two meals a week If you never buy organic try to buy a couple things organic if you don't know anything about the stuff on labels, start reading the label, start to learn one thing, like whatever it is that you're doing, as long as you're moving forward, then that is going to be the key.
Joel Warsh: And every little bit helps, because [00:19:00] whatever you do might be more than enough to keep your kids healthy. And the more that you do, the better. But we don't have a PhD in chemistry, or, you know, biology or food science, we don't know everything, that's fine, you don't need to, but you do know how to read a label and look at a word.
Joel Warsh: And see, it's a real word versus a word you don't know. You can look at a label and see, this is more sugar than that thing. You know, what kind of, it's like these things we can all do. And it adds up. It adds up over 5, years. That matters.
Julie Michelson: It does. It does. Amen. And reading labels, like that's always, to me, the first step of my, my daughter, just, she just did it again.
Julie Michelson: I was like my proudest mom moment when she was in high school, my youngest. And she, she called me cause she and her friends had gotten run to the grocery store for lunch and she had found, you know, something she wanted to eat. And then she read the label and she called and said, well, thanks for ruining my life.
Julie Michelson: Now I can't, I can't eat it. I don't want it.
Joel Warsh: But that is the goal, right? And yes, before it, you said, it's not about punishing them. It's [00:20:00] about them. You want them to learn healthy versus not healthy, good habits in terms of reading labels and learning about things. So that way, when they go out in the world, when they're older, when they're in college, when they're out working in the world, they're going to do the same thing.
Joel Warsh: And they're going to, it might be different things at that point. Who knows what food's going to be like in 20 years or what we're going to be reading, but you're going to be conscious of this pattern of, What I'm putting in matters. It matters for my health and therefore I should think about it and I can be the weird friend.
Joel Warsh: You know, I'm not the weird one, I'm the healthy one. But you know, that's, and if the more kids that do that, the more that other people do it, the more that companies are gonna be forced to make better products. Because if people are not buying stuff with crap in it, then they're not gonna make it anymore.
Joel Warsh: They're not gonna go outta business.
Julie Michelson: Right. And that is key. And, and you mentioned like, it doesn't have to be that hard. And there are up level trades at the grocery store that weren't there, you know, 20 years ago, 18 years ago. Um, you know, you couldn't, I don't think find a [00:21:00] health quote unquote health, a healthier I'll say bag of chips at the store.
Julie Michelson: Now, now you can. So, um, it's not about everybody has to spend 20 hours in the kitchen, you know, even if you never cooked before. So I, I love your, our approaches are very similar. It's like one thing and start with something doable, like get the easy win and, and then start building momentum.
Joel Warsh: All about momentum.
Joel Warsh: And you mentioned about cooking, like, let's be in the kitchen for 20 hours if we can, like, that is useful. Oh, absolutely. I know you meant that. I'm just saying, that's where we need to go. Right. Because not, not day
Julie Michelson: one, not day one,
Joel Warsh: like our goal from day one. I'm someone who's never cooking is to be like, all right, you're going to cook every meal from now on.
Joel Warsh: That's not practical, but right. But we, we do have to acknowledge that a big important part of humanity and healthy lifestyle is knowing all the ingredients, picking great ingredients, loving our food, loving where it comes from, and then getting [00:22:00] that food and then preparing it. With our family for our family, whatever it is like that is a big part of human health and that is gone.
Joel Warsh: Like it is so gone from the last few generations because we're all about faster, cheaper, quicker, and you lose so much. So no, you don't have to do 20 hours right away, but if you want to be healthy, look around the world at the blue zones, right? You can look at grandma's who are like 102 and they have bigger muscles than me because they're in the kitchen all day, just like, you know, rolling and working and it's like, they're not.
Joel Warsh: Going to the gym. They're just cooking, living and living and having real food. They're, they're walking up and down the hills, they're out in the farm. You know, like that's what we always did as humans. Most people were right. Are, you know, cook the food and now like nobody does that anymore.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Joel Warsh: Speaking and, and you know, we live a very sedentary lifestyle and we don't know where our food comes from and it's mostly crap.
Joel Warsh: Um, and even in the best case scenario, we're not preparing it. So how is it possible that we're going to be healthy if we don't give ourselves good nutrients and we're not [00:23:00] moving? Um, so yeah, like one of the best ways to do that is to start cooking again, because then you, you actually realize what is in your food.
Joel Warsh: And you know, if your kids like chicken nuggets, doesn't mean you have to never give them chicken nuggets, but instead of buying the package one or the one you've made, great recipe
Julie Michelson: is super easy.
Joel Warsh: Okay. Maybe even the chicken nuggets you're making are not the best thing in the world, but it's probably. 100 10, 000 times better than the chicken nuggets you're from the grocery store from the fast food store so you're you're getting a huge net positive even if it's not like The best food you could ever give them, maybe, but like, win from where you were.
Joel Warsh: And that's what we have to work towards because that's what matters.
Julie Michelson: Amen. And also, I don't know, like they're going to eat what you're giving them. So if they only want chicken nuggets, it's because you've only been giving them chicken nuggets. I never had it. I don't know. Were there chicken nuggets when I was a kid?
Julie Michelson: I never had one. I don't know until, you know, my kids were asking. So, um, and I, you touched on. [00:24:00] I always we start talking about food always a because so much of what what we eat and we're giving kids isn't I don't even think definable as food and the body certainly doesn't recognize it as food. Um, so it is the, it's the low hanging fruit.
Julie Michelson: It's so important. It's become so adulterated and it's so easy to control once you learn and take those steps. But in another really big thing that you just mentioned, um, because I was thinking, well, yeah, and when you, when you cook. When kids grow up in a, in a cooking home, they learn to cook. Like it's a life skill.
Julie Michelson: And, but, but you mentioned something else, which also is, I believe part of the, the wellness level in the blue zones too, is community and connection, right? When you're, you, you didn't say just cooking, you said cooking together as a family. Right. And I remember back when my kids were tiny. You know, the reading about the importance of sitting down at the dinner table together.[00:25:00]
Julie Michelson: Like even then, and my oldest is about to turn 29, things had already shifted, right? Where people were sticking the kids already in front of the TV with dinner or whatever, whatever happened to that we even needed to discuss, sit down as a family at dinner. Um, and so I, I do think within the family and Outside of the family as well, this sense of community, at least in our country, is something that has also start.
Julie Michelson: I don't want to say faded away, but it needs a little more intention now to create. And I believe is a really important part of wellness.
Joel Warsh: I think so. I've been, you know, mental health is a disaster right now. And a big part of that is, is feeling isolated. You know, a lot of people don't have family around.
Joel Warsh: They don't, they're, they're so busy with their work, but you know, partners, parents are working. I mean, there's just so many things that we're doing and we're so stressed and we're always moving. And, you know, you look at, you know, The [00:26:00] majority of people that seem much happier, like it's just family time.
Joel Warsh: They're just having family cookouts and they're sitting down together and they're spending time and they're slowing down and they're kind of tuning out of their screens and all of these things that it's not rocket science. I mean, you, you know, you want that stability for your kids. Um, these are the things that, that really are, I think, very important for us.
Joel Warsh: Um, and, and our kids and, and we really moved to like, all right, we got to get going, got to get this done faster dinner. You know, we were marketed to, I mean, we were marketed to for many, many years about faster, quicker, cheaper, better. It's just not true. What you, what you lose with faster, quicker, cheaper is health, right?
Joel Warsh: And it's, I mean, it's great that we have some of this stuff because sometimes you need a snack on the go. Sometimes, you know, you just can't cook. Sometimes, you know, these are things that you, you are with our modern lifestyle, but fine. But that should be more of the minority than the everyday. And, and, yeah.
Joel Warsh: I don't know, I just think cooking is such a vital part of our life, our lives, and we lost it. And we have to get it back. And just one other [00:27:00] point on, you know, you're talking about the family cooking. We have to be a little humble here as parents. And I say this to parents all the time, like, you might not be a good cook, you know, that might be the reason why your kids don't eat or maybe right.
Joel Warsh: I've learned, you know, a lot of our parents like didn't really teach us because just wasn't that important. And that's okay. But we're really lucky. We have a lot of resources. There are cooking classes. There's an internet, you know, you can learn some things. And if your kids don't want to eat your food, then maybe, maybe it's not that the food that is healthier is actually bad.
Joel Warsh: Maybe you're just not preparing it in a way that they like. And that's okay. Like, this is just another learning. It's such an important thing. Life skill that we lost and we have to get it back.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And if the kids are in the kitchen, cause I have seen this too, and the parent isn't a great cook, the kids tend to learn really quickly to become good cooks,
Joel Warsh: especially with the younger kids that are toddler, a little older than toddlers, wherever, like they love to help.
Joel Warsh: In the kitchen, they love to help cooking for things, whatever. I mean, that's such a great family activity that it's [00:28:00] like, you don't even, you know, you're not, you're just making dinner, but you're doing it together. Um, and you're teaching them how to cook, but you're also spending time together, which is the thing they value most.
Joel Warsh: So, and
Julie Michelson: I will say, cause I do remember this is that was kind of the height of like my fatigue and my pain. And it will take longer to prepare the meal. There will be a little more cleanup. But you just can't, you can't even put a price on the value of having the kids in the kitchen, really. Right.
Joel Warsh: And that just goes back to priorities, right?
Joel Warsh: I mean, because the first thing that when you talk about this, that people would yell back is like, Oh, I just don't have the time. I'm so busy. Yes. Oh, there's, you know, single moms. Okay. I get it. There are situations where it's really tough to do. Um, but. That doesn't matter. Like it just doesn't matter. You have to prioritize it.
Joel Warsh: I certainly understand in certain situations that like you're not gonna be able to do it, not be able to do every day. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying this has to be a priority if you want to have a healthy family and you can choose not to do it. That's your choice. But if we don't know where what our food is and we don't prepare [00:29:00] food consistently, you are going to be sick and your kids are going to be sick.
Joel Warsh: That's just how it works. So if that's not what you want, then we need to figure out how do we prioritize this? How do we put it into our day? How do we find more time to cook? Because create
Julie Michelson: more time,
Joel Warsh: we all have choices of what we do. And, and, and so it's just gotta be one of the choices. This is something that's super important if you want to have healthy kids.
Joel Warsh: And that may not be the choice that's possible for everyone. I get that. But for the majority of people that has to be a priority and most people can. A lot an extra hour a week an extra 30 minutes a week an extra whatever a week to make a few more meals or even if you can You know, one day of the week, you know, even if that's all the time you have, like on Sunday, you make a big batch of a bunch of food and you, you, yeah.
Joel Warsh: The fridge for a couple of days. And at least it's prepared food for three or four days out of the week instead of zero.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And one of my, my tips with that is like, if you're doing big batch stuff, like make a double batch and freeze portions, and then you're not cooking, but you're eating good, real [00:30:00] homemade food every day.
Julie Michelson: So there are, there are ways. We have ways. Once, like you said, once you, you acknowledge that this is a priority, you'll, you'll find the way and it is a process. Um, but, but I look back and I'm like, wow, you know, luckily I did always even, even. In pain and tired, you know, I always cooked and I can and and yet still my kids.
Julie Michelson: We also ate a bunch of junk. So still my kids ended up having to relearn better habits. Um, so it's kind of the yeah, whatever that first, you know, Step is, like you said, if you don't cook at all, then cook something. So what are some of those other, what we would call modifiable lifestyle factors? You know, food obviously is huge.
Julie Michelson: We community, which, which there's never, it's always interesting. Like there's not an order, a hierarchy. I mean, food, we need, we need the nutrients. So [00:31:00] that's there, but what are other things either that you think are different now? Again, like just contributing to this explosion of illness and children.
Joel Warsh: I think, I mean, there's a bunch, but the two other big ones would be toxins and, and movement or exercise.
Joel Warsh: So, um, I'm gonna start with movement. Cause I think it's a little easier. It's like, you know, obviously we're just not moving. We're meant to move again, going back to the blue zones. Like we talked about it, they just move. That's just their life. They're not going to the gym. They're just. walking and cooking and farming and we have taken that out of our life and we have to put it back in.
Joel Warsh: We have to find ways to move because it's really easy not to. It's really easy to sit at a desk, be in front of a computer, um, get in a car, you know, you don't have to move. And you know, there are ways that you can incorporate some of that back in your life, like going on walks every day with the family, you know, after dinner, before dinner, you can, you know, If you're taking your kids to school, park a couple blocks away and walk.
Joel Warsh: If you're going places, take the stairs instead of the elevator. There are just extra things that [00:32:00] you can do to add in a bunch more steps in the day because we're already, no matter what, going to be below what we probably should be doing for most people. And so, it's not, I mean, it's great if you want to get your kids to school.
Joel Warsh: At a gym or get them into sports. I mean, these things are really good, of course, but they're one hour here or there, like the, it's the low grade movement. I think that's really key to long term health because it's not something that we're like scheduling in. I think it's time to do that, but we just have to be moving more because that's what our bodies need consistently.
Joel Warsh: So that's one big piece. And then the toxins is the other big piece, obviously a huge topic. But to me, where I tend to focus are the big things that we have that we can change quite easily in the home, because that's where we spend so much of our time. Um, and so I usually mention things like, okay, we breathe a lot, right?
Joel Warsh: So let's, let's think about the air. We can't change the air outside, but you can get some plants for your home. You can get an air filter. I mean, these are easy things that you can, you can do to just improve things a little bit. You drink water at home, let's say, um, hopefully, and, and maybe you're drinking tap water.
Joel Warsh: If you're drinking tap water in a [00:33:00] city where the tap water is not so good, then make sure you're getting a filter or get, make sure you're getting bottled water, um, you know, glass of. If you can, um, but these are things again, if you're drinking your tap water every day, like that's a lot of chemicals, especially.
Joel Warsh: So where do you spend your money? Well, I get a good filter. Um, if that's what you're going to be doing. Um, yeah,
Julie Michelson: so important.
Joel Warsh: Yeah. Everything that you're buying, just, just like with food, read the labels on everything, all the products you put on your skin and your children's skin, all the. bedding that you have all the, you know, you're buying new furniture, whatever it is that you're getting, like think about health, try to get the most eco friendly natural products that you possibly can within your budget, because all things are sprayed in chemicals and they're all, there's all sorts of things that everything is sprayed in these days.
Joel Warsh: So if you can get some of the most minimal chemicals that you can, you're decreasing those things that you're breathing in all day.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And they, and the fun part, fun part, the exciting part, if you're like super geeky, like I am, is you can find stuff now, [00:34:00] again, like the, even seven years ago, the home I'm in right now I built and, you know, remember like looking specifically for, you know, furniture that wasn't going to be off gassing.
Julie Michelson: And I drove the, the builders crazy, you know, all the subs that I, my electrician was like, we don't put incandescent lights in anymore. And I'm like, well, you are in this house. It's okay. I don't know. Um, so any, any choice, but I want to highlight what you said, like with obviously air, water, um, Um, but even when you start with your products, like there are certain things, you know, I like laundry detergent is the first product I have people look at because everything that you touch touches your laundry detergent.
Julie Michelson: So it one, sometimes the impact that big bang for the buck, like you can make one change and it's, it is a really huge impact and, and you, you know, Air and water like all day [00:35:00] long, um, and teaching your kids to drink water if they don't drink water instead of, you know, juices and soda. Let's not go there, but like, just as the, again, I'm not saying never treat, but like, if they're dumping juice into their body all day, don't wonder why they end up with diabetes.
Julie Michelson: It's like, it, it's just, there's, we, we like jumped over logic somewhere. And so it's really just getting back to nature and logic. Does that, do you, does that resonate with you?
Joel Warsh: Yeah. I mean, that, that's exactly it. It's all of this stuff is so basic and common sense, but we're so confused by big companies, big corporations, because they're doing that on purpose and that are cheaper.
Joel Warsh: Cause again, I mean, their goal as a company, I've said this many times is to make money. If you were a corporation. Your job as CEO is to make more money this quarter than last quarter. It's not a nefarious thing. I'm sure sometimes they do nefarious things, but mostly it's not nefarious. Mostly it's just, they want to [00:36:00] make more money.
Joel Warsh: So their job is to figure out what do I do to get you to buy my product the most and keep buying my product? It's not about how do I keep you healthy? They don't care, right? They don't care if it's an, if it's a by product of it. Great. I mean, smaller companies, sometimes they think about that because they want you to get their products and buy eco friendly products, but big companies don't care.
Joel Warsh: don't care. That's not their job to care. It's our job to push back. Um, we're doing a terrible job at it. And that's why we're where we are, where we are, because we're letting them kind of run things and market to us and, and, Confuse things and put in chemicals and products that we just know are not healthy for us because it's not that complicated.
Joel Warsh: If it's a real thing, if it's a real product, you know, that's good for you. All these synthetics and chemicals are probably not good for you. I mean, maybe they're not all terrible for you, but they're probably not good for you. So if you just simplify and go back to basic stuff. Then like what we did forever, um, probably going to work just fine.
Joel Warsh: You know, and we, we like with food, we had just way overcomplicated it. We way overcomplicates like you eat real food, fruits, [00:37:00] veggies, beets that are, you know, or, you know, fish, whatever it is that if you, unless you're vegan, um, you know, things that are, that are real food that are. living in the real way, not mass produced.
Joel Warsh: And you'll be fine. Like you don't need to think about diets or all these other things. You just eat real stuff and you cook it and prepare it. That's what everybody did forever. Um, and you don't need to know anything more. If you're buying something for your home, like what is a real product that wasn't sprayed in a bunch of crap, that's going to be better for you than something sprayed in a bunch of crap.
Joel Warsh: Even if they say that it's healthy or it's not toxic. Healthy crap.
Julie Michelson: No, thanks.
Joel Warsh: They're just, they're not going to tell you something's not something's toxic until you see them for 10 years. So that's probably not good for you.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Uh, I love that. And again, it doesn't mean you have to live, you know, totally on the edge and, and be, you know, I know people that do, I know people that only use candlelight when the sun goes down.
Julie Michelson: And, um, although then we can talk about their burning candles. So I don't know. Um, But there is [00:38:00] this middle of the road. And, and I love our philosophy is the same about if you make your home, your Haven, if you're cooking your food and your air is clean and your water is purified, and you're not bombarding with chemicals, you're being thoughtful about your choices in your home.
Julie Michelson: That creates that resilience that we were talking to, you know, we can't live in a bubble, like obviously. And we don't want our kids to have to live in a bubble. But if we can control our exposures at home, we can take a little more of that hit out in the outside world. And that's what we're going for is resilience.
Joel Warsh: For sure. And, and again, I, you mentioned, I echo it again. It's not about doing everything. It's not about doing everything right now. It's not about being overwhelmed. You just start from today. If you've never done it, you know, most you'll probably find you have done some stuff, but like, you know, just what can I do?
Joel Warsh: What can I do next? That doesn't be everything. Like if you're You know, financial means are not the best. There are lots of things you can do that are cheaper. Like you can change out your cleaners for [00:39:00] water and vinegar or baking soda. Like there are things that you can do, like you mentioned, like, you know, changing out your soap.
Joel Warsh: You don't have to buy a more expensive soap, just a better soap, you know, without actually is real soap, but it could be cheaper. You just get some real soap and you
Julie Michelson: don't have to make it either. I did that one time, like 10 years ago, like
Joel Warsh: you can, but we're right. The stuff now. So just find a local producer, go to some place that they make it themselves or whatever, and just, you know, buy it.
Joel Warsh: Like these are things that you can do. And, and you change out some of these things, one thing at a time. And as you buy new things, you just buy them with more thought this time. And it just kind of snowballs in a good direction.
Julie Michelson: I love that. I do. I really do. Even I had this conversation earlier in the week with, with a client who made the comment about, um, you know, her grocery bill.
Julie Michelson: And I said, well, let me ask you a question. What's your restaurant bill? Cause they used to eat out all the time, you know? And so we really that like, let's also be honest with, if you're going to be spending a little more at the grocery store, [00:40:00] are you skipping the drive through line? Are you getting a, you know, Did you drop the $7, if you wanna even call it coffee in the morning, you know, like we tend not to pay attention to, to that kind of spending, but we see our grocery bill.
Julie Michelson: Um, and so it does tend to balance out as you start to bring things back in, into the home. But like you said, it, it's one little thing at a time,
Joel Warsh: right?
Julie Michelson: And
Joel Warsh: yes, like grocery bills are going up and if you wanna eat healthy, you're gonna have a higher grocery bill. I mean, there's no question. And that's not
Julie Michelson: grow a little food.
Joel Warsh: People push back on that. And I'm like, okay, fine. You know, yes, it's more expensive, but where should you spend your money? Like where should you spend your money? That to me is the priority. If that's not your priority, so be it. Um, but to me within your budget, whatever that is, that's where it is a lot. And I would sacrifice some other things for healthier food.
Joel Warsh: Um, and that doesn't mean that if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you have to go to an organic farm and, you know, 500, uh, grocery bills every week with the best food in the world. Like that's not what [00:41:00] I'm saying. It's just whatever you can prioritize, whatever you can afford, that's where I would put my focus.
Joel Warsh: And then when you're working with a budget, then become a mindful savvy consumer and figure out, okay, where can I get the best products for the cheapest? You can even order things from places directly. You cut out the middleman and you don't always have as much choice because they're going to send you a box or whatever, but you're going to get a whole bunch of actually like super duper fresh food and it'll be cheaper than if you get at the store because there is no store.
Joel Warsh: Um, so like kind of things exist if you're willing to do it.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I, I agree with the just get started and, and then, you know, bring creativity. And if you need to, or want to, I love the, you know, there's companies now that have like the uglies, they, they have the veggies that aren't pretty enough to go in the store shelf, but they're organic and they're delicious.
Julie Michelson: And so there's lots of options. Once you set your priorities. Um, which I joke, I [00:42:00] used to always overwhelm my clients in the very beginning because we would jump in with food and, you know, do a lot of things. What are you seeing like from that pediatric lens of the impact of stress on kids these days? I
Joel Warsh: mean, I think it's everybody, right?
Joel Warsh: Stress is so high. We were putting more pressure and stress on kids than ever. And of course, if you're constantly stressed and that's going to affect your immune system and your body, and it's one of the other big fact, we didn't really talk about it too much, but it's one of the other big factors I think, and all these autoimmune conditions and conditions, I mean, the chronic stress throws your body off, it throws your hormones off, it throws your immune system off and it puts you at a disadvantage with everything.
Joel Warsh: And eventually, um, if your hormones are off for long enough time, I think that's another big factor in chronic disease.
Julie Michelson: Thank you. I just wanted to not leave it unsaid, um, because I, you know, I, I deal, dealing with it with the adults, right? But, and, but the, I joke, I don't know if it made me a [00:43:00] better mom or a worse mom, but I, I could see the pressure put on kids, you know, my kids at such a younger age.
Julie Michelson: I remember when one of my kids was, um, Like a freshman in high school and having like this major, like he was dealing with anxiety and it come to find out when I finally got really, you know, got him to open up. It was because he was going to a, you know, uh, an IB high school. So, you know, good, you know, it was geared toward go getters and basically they, they had told the, the, the message the kids were receiving was by now you should know what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Julie Michelson: Like, where are you going to college? What? And I was like, well, well, well, no, you know, and I really feel like as a mom, I, which was not common, but I found myself saying like, you know, it's okay, like [00:44:00] nobody cares, you know, yeah, if you have a specific goal to go to a certain college, I'll support you in doing what you need to do.
Julie Michelson: Right. Or even in college, it was like, nobody's looking at your undergrad grades. Like you don't need a 4. 0 plus in college to do whatever, anything you want to do, like reel it in a little bit. Um, but I do feel like it's like a pressure cooker from such an early age now, um, that, that I just wanted to see, like, is that what you're seeing?
Joel Warsh: I think there's a lot of. Um, thinking way far ahead, forget it's like, Oh, isn't
Julie Michelson: that, isn't that considered anxiety?
Joel Warsh: Oh, I want them to get into Harvard. So therefore they need to do these things. So therefore we need to get on these grounds. We need to get them in this school. Okay. Well, if I get in that school, then I have to get them in this.
Joel Warsh: You know, great. Oh, I want to get into that grade school. I got to get my this kindergarten, you know, and you're like putting pressure when they're four to go to Harvard and it's like, okay, well, you know, like if
Julie Michelson: they want to be a farmer, maybe
Joel Warsh: that's not going to be there anymore, you know, or [00:45:00] maybe they can want to get in and they accept, you know, a couple of percent of people, regardless of how good they are.
Joel Warsh: So maybe you should enjoy your life because that may not be what they want to do anyways. And a lot of people get in because they're actually interesting. Do unique things and not follow that exact path. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to get into a good school or something. That that's what you want.
Joel Warsh: I didn't
Julie Michelson: mean it that way. I just, and
Joel Warsh: I know you don't, I'm going to say, you know, I think for parents,
Julie Michelson: I think it used to be parental stress. That now is put on the kids where it used to just be, you know, the parent quietly being up in the middle of the night saying, Oh, this is my kid going to do the things or
Joel Warsh: so much pressure and so much competition for some of these things now, you know, with social media and seeing everybody and every other thing going on that you, you put pressure, they put pressure and there's just a lot of pressure on things that are so.
Joel Warsh: Unimportant or don't end up being a problem anymore. And it's just so constant and then again, it doesn't stress as good a little bit, but not in the way that we're doing. [00:46:00] Um, and it's, it's just such a crazy, crazy time of stress when there's no need a lot of the time to be worried about these things in the way that we are in the amount that we are.
Joel Warsh: So, yeah, I think we. We just, we need to dial it back a little bit.
Julie Michelson: Thank you for that. I, amen. So we're at the point in the conversation where listeners are leaning in because they know I'm going to ask you for one step. We already prefaced anything we're talking about for kids goes for adults or vice versa, because we're all humans, right?
Julie Michelson: So you can gear it to whomever you want, but one step that listeners can start to take today to improve health.
Joel Warsh: I would say again, reading labels. I think that's, that's the biggest key. That's a really easy thing to do. And from now on, when you purchase anything, you're flipping it over, you're reading the label, you're looking at the label and you're seeing what's in it.
Joel Warsh: And once you start to at least acknowledge the stuff that's in things, you're going to be like, Oh, wait, I don't want to buy that. [00:47:00] Even if you don't know that much about it, you can look at it and be like, well, that doesn't sound like it should be in there.
Julie Michelson: I can't pronounce that. Thank you so much for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check out the show notes.
Julie Michelson: Where is the best place to find you?
Joel Warsh: Uh, so the best places to find me would be on Instagram or X at Dr. Joel Gator, or if you do have a young child or pregnant, then, uh, parenting at your child's pace is the book. And you can go to, you know, wherever books are sold or parenting at your child's pace. com.
Julie Michelson: Awesome. And I actually think we should all read it anyway, even if our kids are older, just there's, it's, it's just good, good information and advice. So Dr. Joel Gator, Dr. Joel Warsh, however, we find you. Thank you so much for giving us amazing gold today.
Joel Warsh: Thank you
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get those transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as [00:48:00] much as I did. I'll see you next week.
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Joel Warsh: So if that's not what you want, then we need to figure out how do we prioritize this? How do we put it into our day? How do we find more time to cook?
Joel Warsh: We all have choices of what we do, and so it's just gotta be one of the choices. This is something that's super important if you want to have healthy kids
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michaelson. Today. We're joined by Dr. Joel Warsh, AKA Dr. Joel Gator of the popular parenting Instagram account. Joel is a board certified pediatrician in Los Angeles, California, who specializes in parenting wellness and integrative medicine.
Julie Michelson: He's the author of parenting at your child's pace, the integrative pediatrician's guide to the first three years. In today's conversation, we're talking about what's going on with kids health today and why chronic illness, including autoimmunity, is on the rise at a frightening pace. Best of all, we discuss what to do about it by addressing lifestyle factors in order to reverse the trend and create a healthier generation.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Joel, welcome to the podcast.
Joel Warsh: Thank you for having me on.
Julie Michelson:[00:02:00] I'm so excited. First of all, you are, yay, I think the first pediatrician who's been on the podcast. Um, and if this were 20 years ago, people would be like, why would you have a pediatrician on an autoimmunity podcast? Um, but it's not so welcome.
Julie Michelson: I'm excited for our conversation. I was just kind of gushing over you before I hit record that I just really appreciate. Your work and, and just the, the kind of openness you show up with for at least your audience on Instagram, which is where I know you from most. Um, so I'm thankful you're here.
Joel Warsh: Well, thank, thanks for having me on.
Joel Warsh: And I guess it's good to be here, but I guess not so good. I mean, I, I, I, I hate what you're saying. And I guess, of course, it is actually. useful, unfortunately, because yeah,
Julie Michelson: well, and, and so we need these conversations, um, so that we can change the trajectory a little bit. So, but I would love to find [00:03:00] out how I was just saying, you know, audience listeners, no, my, my kids are grown.
Julie Michelson: Um, but you know, how did you get into the, this integrative, what I would call kind of functional medicine approach to pediatrics?
Joel Warsh: Yeah, most people get into integrative medicine, I think, because they had some sort of life thing that happened to them, health complication and medical really helped them. And then they found something else that that wasn't really my story.
Joel Warsh: I mean, I'm luckily been pretty healthy, knock on wood. But for me, when I was going through training, I got really frustrated with medications for everything and seeing a million patients all the time and seeing kids getting sicker and sicker and also seeing people go outside of the system and getting better and starting to wonder what that is.
Joel Warsh: Also meeting my now wife at that time who's very holistic minded too. So all these things really open up my eyes to what else is out there. And once you step outside the regular medical system a little bit, you [00:04:00] start to realize like, Oh, this is not that good. This is not crazy. Like, why are we not thinking about food?
Joel Warsh: Of course these things make sense. Like, you know, there's nothing that, I mean, you can get pretty woo woo if you go into integrative medicine, but that's not what it is. I'd be not for the really just. thinking about the foundations. And so that's really what led me into integrative medicine because there was no way to go back.
Joel Warsh: I know you're asking before about Dr. Gator. So that's my wife's last name. Actually, it's Intelligator. Um, and people thought that was funny. So it kind of stuck. It's not a Florida thing. Everyone thinks it's a Florida thing. Nothing against Florida. I grew up in Toronto, but it's a wife thing.
Julie Michelson: That's funny.
Julie Michelson: That's, I know, I was confessing. Oh, no, your real, real name was Dr. Warsh. So, um, I, and it is true kind of once your eyes are opened, you, you really can't, I mean, your box got bigger, right? Why would you go back smaller? And I was kind of giggling because for the past 20 plus years, I've lived in Colorado and I lived right outside of Boulder, moved from originally in the Northeast via Florida, um, to [00:05:00] Colorado.
Julie Michelson: And really thought the, whether, you know, woo woo granola, just a lot of the lifestyle in Boulder. I'm not talking about the marijuana or
Joel Warsh: just 20, no, just healthy living
Julie Michelson: 20 years ago. A healthy living, real food, raw milk. Like these things that I remember thinking like, these people are nuts. And I remember, you know, the more I learned and have evolved, it is like, oh.
Julie Michelson: No, they were right. So yeah, you can get as woo woo or whatever, but, but there is a natural state that humans are supposed to be in, which leads me to one of the reasons I was so excited about our conversation, um, is because. not only autoimmunity, but yes, autoimmunity, all kinds of chronic health challenges are on the rise in kids in astounding numbers.
Julie Michelson: In the nineties, I worked at a university that had a [00:06:00] school for autistic children. Um, it was rare back then, right now it's not rare. So what is going on here?
Joel Warsh: Yeah, I think it, it is really important to set the stage for what we're seeing these days, especially for those that don't have kids or really aren't, you know, in the loop on it, because I think it's all relevant, regardless of whether we talk about kids, because it's really very similar for adults and kids and humans.
Joel Warsh: And, you know, when we talk about kids and we talk about the stats, like you talk about autism, you know, back. 50 years ago, 100 years ago, it was like 1 in 25, 000, 1 in 1, 000, then it was dropping to 1 in 100, now it's like 1 in 36 or so is the statistics, 1 in 22 in California, so like those numbers are increasing at a staggering rate.
Joel Warsh: Autoimmune conditions, basically everyone. It's going through the roof. A lot of things we never saw in kids we're seeing in kids now. I mean, the easiest example to really drive that point home is diabetes, right? I mean, type two diabetes called adult onset diabetes, because you didn't see it in kids, [00:07:00] uh, ever, you know, when you were, you know, even for me in my career, I'm not like that old or anything, but it wasn't something that you really talked about, like even 10 or 15 years ago and kids, because It's more of a lifestyle thing.
Joel Warsh: And we all kind of accept that for type two diabetes. It's like, you know, if you change up your, your diet, if you're not eating that healthy, if you move a little bit more, we can see those numbers improve. We can, you know, not, not consider ourselves to have that condition anymore, most of the time, but that used to be for adults.
Joel Warsh: Now the average age of onset is 13 and 33 percent of kids have diabetes or prediabetes. 50 percent of kids are overweight or obese. Um, autoimmune condition numbers, you know, uh, And they even want to include like, um, you know, just all the different things that we're seeing, but then also anxiety, mental health, uh, depression, uh, asthma, uh, allergies.
Joel Warsh: I mean, all of these things that were very rare, of course they existed before, but they were very rare. And yes, some people want to point to, we're better at diagnosis. Of course we are, we are better at diagnosis. So that's a small part of it, but you don't go from it's a really [00:08:00] small part of housing one in 20 or one in 30.
Joel Warsh: In, in, you know, a couple of decades that the, the way we're diagnosing hasn't changed that much in the last 20 years. I mean, it certainly has changed in the last 50 years, but, but that's not what's going on. It's just a small part of it. What is going on is our lifestyle is so crappy and not built in the way that we're meant to live.
Joel Warsh: And so for kids, especially, but adults too, we're not getting the nutrients that we need. We're being exposed to so many chemicals and at some point our body cannot handle that. And then it falls off a cliff and it expresses itself in different ways, depending on your genetics, depending on your environment.
Joel Warsh: And that might be an autoimmune condition. That might be autism. That might be a mental, whatever it is. I think it just expresses itself in different ways. Sure. That's a lot of what we're seeing. Absolutely. I'm just, you know, stepping back. There are some genetic conditions. There are some things which have, you know, probably very little to do with environment, but you can still improve your environment and help your symptoms.
Joel Warsh: But I think the majority of what we're seeing and the majority of this explosion is because of our [00:09:00] environment because our genetics haven't changed that much in the last 50, 100 years,
Julie Michelson: right, right. And I love that that you highlight that even if you have genetic predispositions. For things we can modify those lifestyle factors and, and turn that back off.
Julie Michelson: Or as you said, improve symptoms so that they become like a non event. I love that you pointed out with diabetes. That's kind of the easiest one. I hear it all the time. Well, my mom has diabetes and my grandma had that, you know, and it's like, okay, are y'all eating together though? I'm curious, do you live together?
Julie Michelson: It's not necessarily genetics, just because a family shares it. We
Joel Warsh: have to expand the definition. Like, you know, you, you, you work with and talked about a lot of autoimmune conditions. And I think we need to expand that type one and type two to almost all of these conditions, including autism, because I think there are some versions of a lot of these things that are, you know, very much a genetic thing.
Joel Warsh: Component. And then there are other versions of it that are a very small genetic component. Maybe you're a little more susceptible, but [00:10:00] it's the lifestyle that pushes it over the edge. And I think if we separate it in that way, we can take our power back and we can start, you know, like type two celiac disease, type two, like whatever it is.
Joel Warsh: Right. I mean, I think that there is certainly a huge lifestyle component for many people. And if you. Can kind of separate that out. Then maybe we're going to take our power back as opposed to million. Well, I guess it's just the way that it is. I guess I'm just saying take this medicine.
Julie Michelson: It's defeating and as a parent and my kids shocker, um, you know, while I was in the midst of my down my decline with with rheumatoid arthritis and all my other diagnoses, you know, my kids started getting diagnosed with things right.
Julie Michelson: Um, and so it is about empowerment. That's why we're having the conversation and it's not about shaming or finger pointing or. One of my favorite things working with parents of young children is the downstream effect, right? If I'm [00:11:00] working with a mom to reverse her symptoms or get, you know, as, as much under control as possible, I, my hope, grand hope, and should be, is that her kids aren't going to be seeking out somebody like me in their adulthood to backtrack and correct the things that, that set the spiral in motion to begin with.
Julie Michelson: And that's. Exciting. That is empowerment. And so as a parent, you want to know like, okay, to me, the diagnosis is the label for the symptoms, right? Like none of it answers the question, why is this happening? Right. And so it is empowering as, as a parent to be able to say, I can help my kid. Um, and, and it always, it's interesting.
Julie Michelson: I'm guessing you see this with parents a lot too. Oh, it's hard. Oh, my kids aren't going to eat that way. Oh, my kids don't, you know, Um, whatever, fill in the blank. And it's like, actually you're the parent, if that's the food on the [00:12:00] table, like they may skip the first meal they're going to eat. We're animals when it comes down to it, when we get hungry, we're going to eat what's there.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and it's not a punishment for kids to eat. I don't think to eat real food and, and learn to nourish their bodies.
Joel Warsh: No, it's it's absolutely not. And that's called parenting. I mean, we have to get back to it. We have some boundaries within reason. And like what you said is exactly, exactly true. And I, and I definitely echo that often because, you know, we're not trying to punish our kids with their food by saying like, Oh, you can never have a snack.
Joel Warsh: No, we're trying to give them. Healthier versions of foods that they like. And that means some experimentation, some figuring out what will work, but it doesn't mean you have to go from chips to broccoli. It means that
Julie Michelson: you're
Joel Warsh: going to get a bag of chips. You read the ingredients, you pick the better bag of chips, right?
Joel Warsh: Make rid of the really crappy, you know, cookies and Oreos whatever, and you pick, there are a lot of other versions of things out there, and there's also a lot of other snack food that you can [00:13:00] purchase, make, um, that's quite healthy and they're going to love it too. They might fight you at first. But if it's actually really good, they're not gonna fight you.
Joel Warsh: If they, you know, maybe they're gonna love, uh, carrots and peanut butter or something like, I, I don't know what it is. They're gonna love middle of the road. Yeah. Bad. You can, you can find them good food. That's a lot more different. Make them an, an
Julie Michelson: analog, you know,
Joel Warsh: and, and, and that's our job. Like our job is to keep them healthy, to make them resilient.
Joel Warsh: And it doesn't matter that you're, you know, I mean, I get it. People are busy. Things cost money. Like that's all true. But we wanna have healthy kids, so we have to prioritize our health. As well. And if it's not part of the equation, then our kids are going to be sick. And that's just how it is. I mean, one or two kids have a chronic disease right now.
Joel Warsh: And if you're okay with that, then it's fine. If everyone can make their own choices of what they want to do. But if you don't, then you want to give your kids the best chance to be healthy. The world is a toxic place to begin with. There's only so much that we can work with. So we have to do what we can within what we can do.
Joel Warsh: And that is the part that's up to us. And it makes a [00:14:00] huge difference because. The little things add up, you know, it's not like one piece of cake is going to be the end of the world, give you an autoimmune condition, but if you're eating the dye, the chemical over 10 years, then that adds up in your body, add that with every other thing, and eventually they can't handle it, but if you start to take away a few of those things, our bodies are amazing, they can handle a lot, and that's what they do.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's always this tipping point, right? So it doesn't mean, I always say, you know, perfection doesn't really exist and it's not sustainable. It's, it's that, you mentioned the word foundation and I do believe that is our job as parents is to create foundations, whether it's health, faith, just values, all of it.
Julie Michelson: Then they go out, they, you know, minor, all adults, they, they've made their own choices. Those foundations are still really evident. Um, and so, and I, like people think I joke, I was not born a health coach, right? Like people are like, Oh my gosh, you used to eat junk [00:15:00] food. Yes. I used to eat junk food. I used to eat stuff that I would never put in my mouth now, because I know better.
Julie Michelson: I'm not saying that wouldn't, that wouldn't work. You know, it probably wouldn't taste good, but it did taste good at the time. So we go through this. I went through, um, and you work with a lot of parents. When my oldest was diagnosed with celiac, that became when he was 12, that became the beginning of my actual healing journey.
Julie Michelson: Shocker. Cause we changed the food in the house. Um, and I remember like literally feeling guilty that he was a middle school boy, you know, hardest time of his life. Um, maybe hopefully at least, you know, and that he wasn't going to be able to eat the Oreos and the crap. Right. I literally did. And I had a, we were just talking about it at family dinner on Sunday.
Julie Michelson: We had, I had a gluten bin. Because I felt like, well, it wasn't fair to the other two. They don't have celiac. And [00:16:00] now I'm like, what they tease me all the time. They're like, thanks for like, continuing to give us the poison, you know, um, or I'll work with parents who they'll, they'll get, you know, the grass fed meat for themselves and give their kids the, and I'm like, wait, I don't understand.
Julie Michelson: Don't you love your children? So we need to let go of the guilt. The, the, we're creating change for children. Um, I, that's one of the reasons I get so excited about what you do, because I think, Oh my gosh, if people can learn this before they get pregnant, even they, you know, then they're just there. It's just a home run.
Julie Michelson: I'm not saying nobody will ever get sick, but. Right,
Joel Warsh: right. No, that, and that's exactly why I wrote the book for the age range that I did. Cause I just came up with parenting at your child's pace and it's a book for zero to three year olds. Um, and. You know, I get asked a lot about like, why did I choose that age range?
Joel Warsh: Why didn't I go farther? You know, and, and I mean, there's just so many questions that new parents have, but a big focus of what I wanted to do. And one of the reasons I got into pediatrics in the first [00:17:00] place was to help kids prevent disease. It's not what's going on in medicine. These days, everything is treatment and treatment is great.
Joel Warsh: I mean, we need treatments too, but we have to prevent these things. So they don't end up in our offices. They don't end up needing an autoimmune coach, so they don't end up an integrative practitioner, you know, trying to get ahead of it. And so a lot of.
Julie Michelson: We're an integrative practitioner is just what we think of as a practitioner.
Joel Warsh: Our goal should be, let's talk about how we build a healthy child, build a resilient child. Let's talk about the foundation. So that way you can set that up from day one. So you're going to minimize the risk to be sick. No matter what you do, you can be the healthiest person in the world. You can still get sick.
Joel Warsh: You can still get cancer. These things happen. You could be the least healthy person in the world and smoking and drinking every day and live to 120. These things happen,
Julie Michelson: but my grandmother perfectly pickled herself. Like literally I, she was pickled preserved, like just, and not sick. For most
Joel Warsh: people, for most kids, if you Live the regular American way.
Joel Warsh: You're going to have a chronic condition. You're going to [00:18:00] be on multiple medications. If you don't live that way, you won't. I mean that like, we know this, we know this pretty clearly. We can look at the places around the world that live the longest that are the healthiest. I mean, we know what that involves and yet we're not doing it.
Joel Warsh: And, and therefore it is up to us to start to take back our control. And again, like you said, it's not about shaming. It's not about blaming. It's not about feeling bad. It's not about feeling overwhelmed. I try to minimize stress when I talk, I try to minimize overwhelm because it's, it's not about everything.
Joel Warsh: It's just about making conscious choices. To be healthy to start learning about some of this stuff to start making choices with This in mind and prioritizing your health and one little thing at a time wherever you are If you never cook cook a meal a week If you cook one meal a week cook two meals a week If you never buy organic try to buy a couple things organic if you don't know anything about the stuff on labels, start reading the label, start to learn one thing, like whatever it is that you're doing, as long as you're moving forward, then that is going to be the key.
Joel Warsh: And every little bit helps, because [00:19:00] whatever you do might be more than enough to keep your kids healthy. And the more that you do, the better. But we don't have a PhD in chemistry, or, you know, biology or food science, we don't know everything, that's fine, you don't need to, but you do know how to read a label and look at a word.
Joel Warsh: And see, it's a real word versus a word you don't know. You can look at a label and see, this is more sugar than that thing. You know, what kind of, it's like these things we can all do. And it adds up. It adds up over 5, years. That matters.
Julie Michelson: It does. It does. Amen. And reading labels, like that's always, to me, the first step of my, my daughter, just, she just did it again.
Julie Michelson: I was like my proudest mom moment when she was in high school, my youngest. And she, she called me cause she and her friends had gotten run to the grocery store for lunch and she had found, you know, something she wanted to eat. And then she read the label and she called and said, well, thanks for ruining my life.
Julie Michelson: Now I can't, I can't eat it. I don't want it.
Joel Warsh: But that is the goal, right? And yes, before it, you said, it's not about punishing them. It's [00:20:00] about them. You want them to learn healthy versus not healthy, good habits in terms of reading labels and learning about things. So that way, when they go out in the world, when they're older, when they're in college, when they're out working in the world, they're going to do the same thing.
Joel Warsh: And they're going to, it might be different things at that point. Who knows what food's going to be like in 20 years or what we're going to be reading, but you're going to be conscious of this pattern of, What I'm putting in matters. It matters for my health and therefore I should think about it and I can be the weird friend.
Joel Warsh: You know, I'm not the weird one, I'm the healthy one. But you know, that's, and if the more kids that do that, the more that other people do it, the more that companies are gonna be forced to make better products. Because if people are not buying stuff with crap in it, then they're not gonna make it anymore.
Joel Warsh: They're not gonna go outta business.
Julie Michelson: Right. And that is key. And, and you mentioned like, it doesn't have to be that hard. And there are up level trades at the grocery store that weren't there, you know, 20 years ago, 18 years ago. Um, you know, you couldn't, I don't think find a [00:21:00] health quote unquote health, a healthier I'll say bag of chips at the store.
Julie Michelson: Now, now you can. So, um, it's not about everybody has to spend 20 hours in the kitchen, you know, even if you never cooked before. So I, I love your, our approaches are very similar. It's like one thing and start with something doable, like get the easy win and, and then start building momentum.
Joel Warsh: All about momentum.
Joel Warsh: And you mentioned about cooking, like, let's be in the kitchen for 20 hours if we can, like, that is useful. Oh, absolutely. I know you meant that. I'm just saying, that's where we need to go. Right. Because not, not day
Julie Michelson: one, not day one,
Joel Warsh: like our goal from day one. I'm someone who's never cooking is to be like, all right, you're going to cook every meal from now on.
Joel Warsh: That's not practical, but right. But we, we do have to acknowledge that a big important part of humanity and healthy lifestyle is knowing all the ingredients, picking great ingredients, loving our food, loving where it comes from, and then getting [00:22:00] that food and then preparing it. With our family for our family, whatever it is like that is a big part of human health and that is gone.
Joel Warsh: Like it is so gone from the last few generations because we're all about faster, cheaper, quicker, and you lose so much. So no, you don't have to do 20 hours right away, but if you want to be healthy, look around the world at the blue zones, right? You can look at grandma's who are like 102 and they have bigger muscles than me because they're in the kitchen all day, just like, you know, rolling and working and it's like, they're not.
Joel Warsh: Going to the gym. They're just cooking, living and living and having real food. They're, they're walking up and down the hills, they're out in the farm. You know, like that's what we always did as humans. Most people were right. Are, you know, cook the food and now like nobody does that anymore.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Joel Warsh: Speaking and, and you know, we live a very sedentary lifestyle and we don't know where our food comes from and it's mostly crap.
Joel Warsh: Um, and even in the best case scenario, we're not preparing it. So how is it possible that we're going to be healthy if we don't give ourselves good nutrients and we're not [00:23:00] moving? Um, so yeah, like one of the best ways to do that is to start cooking again, because then you, you actually realize what is in your food.
Joel Warsh: And you know, if your kids like chicken nuggets, doesn't mean you have to never give them chicken nuggets, but instead of buying the package one or the one you've made, great recipe
Julie Michelson: is super easy.
Joel Warsh: Okay. Maybe even the chicken nuggets you're making are not the best thing in the world, but it's probably. 100 10, 000 times better than the chicken nuggets you're from the grocery store from the fast food store so you're you're getting a huge net positive even if it's not like The best food you could ever give them, maybe, but like, win from where you were.
Joel Warsh: And that's what we have to work towards because that's what matters.
Julie Michelson: Amen. And also, I don't know, like they're going to eat what you're giving them. So if they only want chicken nuggets, it's because you've only been giving them chicken nuggets. I never had it. I don't know. Were there chicken nuggets when I was a kid?
Julie Michelson: I never had one. I don't know until, you know, my kids were asking. So, um, and I, you touched on. [00:24:00] I always we start talking about food always a because so much of what what we eat and we're giving kids isn't I don't even think definable as food and the body certainly doesn't recognize it as food. Um, so it is the, it's the low hanging fruit.
Julie Michelson: It's so important. It's become so adulterated and it's so easy to control once you learn and take those steps. But in another really big thing that you just mentioned, um, because I was thinking, well, yeah, and when you, when you cook. When kids grow up in a, in a cooking home, they learn to cook. Like it's a life skill.
Julie Michelson: And, but, but you mentioned something else, which also is, I believe part of the, the wellness level in the blue zones too, is community and connection, right? When you're, you, you didn't say just cooking, you said cooking together as a family. Right. And I remember back when my kids were tiny. You know, the reading about the importance of sitting down at the dinner table together.[00:25:00]
Julie Michelson: Like even then, and my oldest is about to turn 29, things had already shifted, right? Where people were sticking the kids already in front of the TV with dinner or whatever, whatever happened to that we even needed to discuss, sit down as a family at dinner. Um, and so I, I do think within the family and Outside of the family as well, this sense of community, at least in our country, is something that has also start.
Julie Michelson: I don't want to say faded away, but it needs a little more intention now to create. And I believe is a really important part of wellness.
Joel Warsh: I think so. I've been, you know, mental health is a disaster right now. And a big part of that is, is feeling isolated. You know, a lot of people don't have family around.
Joel Warsh: They don't, they're, they're so busy with their work, but you know, partners, parents are working. I mean, there's just so many things that we're doing and we're so stressed and we're always moving. And, you know, you look at, you know, The [00:26:00] majority of people that seem much happier, like it's just family time.
Joel Warsh: They're just having family cookouts and they're sitting down together and they're spending time and they're slowing down and they're kind of tuning out of their screens and all of these things that it's not rocket science. I mean, you, you know, you want that stability for your kids. Um, these are the things that, that really are, I think, very important for us.
Joel Warsh: Um, and, and our kids and, and we really moved to like, all right, we got to get going, got to get this done faster dinner. You know, we were marketed to, I mean, we were marketed to for many, many years about faster, quicker, cheaper, better. It's just not true. What you, what you lose with faster, quicker, cheaper is health, right?
Joel Warsh: And it's, I mean, it's great that we have some of this stuff because sometimes you need a snack on the go. Sometimes, you know, you just can't cook. Sometimes, you know, these are things that you, you are with our modern lifestyle, but fine. But that should be more of the minority than the everyday. And, and, yeah.
Joel Warsh: I don't know, I just think cooking is such a vital part of our life, our lives, and we lost it. And we have to get it back. And just one other [00:27:00] point on, you know, you're talking about the family cooking. We have to be a little humble here as parents. And I say this to parents all the time, like, you might not be a good cook, you know, that might be the reason why your kids don't eat or maybe right.
Joel Warsh: I've learned, you know, a lot of our parents like didn't really teach us because just wasn't that important. And that's okay. But we're really lucky. We have a lot of resources. There are cooking classes. There's an internet, you know, you can learn some things. And if your kids don't want to eat your food, then maybe, maybe it's not that the food that is healthier is actually bad.
Joel Warsh: Maybe you're just not preparing it in a way that they like. And that's okay. Like, this is just another learning. It's such an important thing. Life skill that we lost and we have to get it back.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And if the kids are in the kitchen, cause I have seen this too, and the parent isn't a great cook, the kids tend to learn really quickly to become good cooks,
Joel Warsh: especially with the younger kids that are toddler, a little older than toddlers, wherever, like they love to help.
Joel Warsh: In the kitchen, they love to help cooking for things, whatever. I mean, that's such a great family activity that it's [00:28:00] like, you don't even, you know, you're not, you're just making dinner, but you're doing it together. Um, and you're teaching them how to cook, but you're also spending time together, which is the thing they value most.
Joel Warsh: So, and
Julie Michelson: I will say, cause I do remember this is that was kind of the height of like my fatigue and my pain. And it will take longer to prepare the meal. There will be a little more cleanup. But you just can't, you can't even put a price on the value of having the kids in the kitchen, really. Right.
Joel Warsh: And that just goes back to priorities, right?
Joel Warsh: I mean, because the first thing that when you talk about this, that people would yell back is like, Oh, I just don't have the time. I'm so busy. Yes. Oh, there's, you know, single moms. Okay. I get it. There are situations where it's really tough to do. Um, but. That doesn't matter. Like it just doesn't matter. You have to prioritize it.
Joel Warsh: I certainly understand in certain situations that like you're not gonna be able to do it, not be able to do every day. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying this has to be a priority if you want to have a healthy family and you can choose not to do it. That's your choice. But if we don't know where what our food is and we don't prepare [00:29:00] food consistently, you are going to be sick and your kids are going to be sick.
Joel Warsh: That's just how it works. So if that's not what you want, then we need to figure out how do we prioritize this? How do we put it into our day? How do we find more time to cook? Because create
Julie Michelson: more time,
Joel Warsh: we all have choices of what we do. And, and, and so it's just gotta be one of the choices. This is something that's super important if you want to have healthy kids.
Joel Warsh: And that may not be the choice that's possible for everyone. I get that. But for the majority of people that has to be a priority and most people can. A lot an extra hour a week an extra 30 minutes a week an extra whatever a week to make a few more meals or even if you can You know, one day of the week, you know, even if that's all the time you have, like on Sunday, you make a big batch of a bunch of food and you, you, yeah.
Joel Warsh: The fridge for a couple of days. And at least it's prepared food for three or four days out of the week instead of zero.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And one of my, my tips with that is like, if you're doing big batch stuff, like make a double batch and freeze portions, and then you're not cooking, but you're eating good, real [00:30:00] homemade food every day.
Julie Michelson: So there are, there are ways. We have ways. Once, like you said, once you, you acknowledge that this is a priority, you'll, you'll find the way and it is a process. Um, but, but I look back and I'm like, wow, you know, luckily I did always even, even. In pain and tired, you know, I always cooked and I can and and yet still my kids.
Julie Michelson: We also ate a bunch of junk. So still my kids ended up having to relearn better habits. Um, so it's kind of the yeah, whatever that first, you know, Step is, like you said, if you don't cook at all, then cook something. So what are some of those other, what we would call modifiable lifestyle factors? You know, food obviously is huge.
Julie Michelson: We community, which, which there's never, it's always interesting. Like there's not an order, a hierarchy. I mean, food, we need, we need the nutrients. So [00:31:00] that's there, but what are other things either that you think are different now? Again, like just contributing to this explosion of illness and children.
Joel Warsh: I think, I mean, there's a bunch, but the two other big ones would be toxins and, and movement or exercise.
Joel Warsh: So, um, I'm gonna start with movement. Cause I think it's a little easier. It's like, you know, obviously we're just not moving. We're meant to move again, going back to the blue zones. Like we talked about it, they just move. That's just their life. They're not going to the gym. They're just. walking and cooking and farming and we have taken that out of our life and we have to put it back in.
Joel Warsh: We have to find ways to move because it's really easy not to. It's really easy to sit at a desk, be in front of a computer, um, get in a car, you know, you don't have to move. And you know, there are ways that you can incorporate some of that back in your life, like going on walks every day with the family, you know, after dinner, before dinner, you can, you know, If you're taking your kids to school, park a couple blocks away and walk.
Joel Warsh: If you're going places, take the stairs instead of the elevator. There are just extra things that [00:32:00] you can do to add in a bunch more steps in the day because we're already, no matter what, going to be below what we probably should be doing for most people. And so, it's not, I mean, it's great if you want to get your kids to school.
Joel Warsh: At a gym or get them into sports. I mean, these things are really good, of course, but they're one hour here or there, like the, it's the low grade movement. I think that's really key to long term health because it's not something that we're like scheduling in. I think it's time to do that, but we just have to be moving more because that's what our bodies need consistently.
Joel Warsh: So that's one big piece. And then the toxins is the other big piece, obviously a huge topic. But to me, where I tend to focus are the big things that we have that we can change quite easily in the home, because that's where we spend so much of our time. Um, and so I usually mention things like, okay, we breathe a lot, right?
Joel Warsh: So let's, let's think about the air. We can't change the air outside, but you can get some plants for your home. You can get an air filter. I mean, these are easy things that you can, you can do to just improve things a little bit. You drink water at home, let's say, um, hopefully, and, and maybe you're drinking tap water.
Joel Warsh: If you're drinking tap water in a [00:33:00] city where the tap water is not so good, then make sure you're getting a filter or get, make sure you're getting bottled water, um, you know, glass of. If you can, um, but these are things again, if you're drinking your tap water every day, like that's a lot of chemicals, especially.
Joel Warsh: So where do you spend your money? Well, I get a good filter. Um, if that's what you're going to be doing. Um, yeah,
Julie Michelson: so important.
Joel Warsh: Yeah. Everything that you're buying, just, just like with food, read the labels on everything, all the products you put on your skin and your children's skin, all the. bedding that you have all the, you know, you're buying new furniture, whatever it is that you're getting, like think about health, try to get the most eco friendly natural products that you possibly can within your budget, because all things are sprayed in chemicals and they're all, there's all sorts of things that everything is sprayed in these days.
Joel Warsh: So if you can get some of the most minimal chemicals that you can, you're decreasing those things that you're breathing in all day.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And they, and the fun part, fun part, the exciting part, if you're like super geeky, like I am, is you can find stuff now, [00:34:00] again, like the, even seven years ago, the home I'm in right now I built and, you know, remember like looking specifically for, you know, furniture that wasn't going to be off gassing.
Julie Michelson: And I drove the, the builders crazy, you know, all the subs that I, my electrician was like, we don't put incandescent lights in anymore. And I'm like, well, you are in this house. It's okay. I don't know. Um, so any, any choice, but I want to highlight what you said, like with obviously air, water, um, Um, but even when you start with your products, like there are certain things, you know, I like laundry detergent is the first product I have people look at because everything that you touch touches your laundry detergent.
Julie Michelson: So it one, sometimes the impact that big bang for the buck, like you can make one change and it's, it is a really huge impact and, and you, you know, Air and water like all day [00:35:00] long, um, and teaching your kids to drink water if they don't drink water instead of, you know, juices and soda. Let's not go there, but like, just as the, again, I'm not saying never treat, but like, if they're dumping juice into their body all day, don't wonder why they end up with diabetes.
Julie Michelson: It's like, it, it's just, there's, we, we like jumped over logic somewhere. And so it's really just getting back to nature and logic. Does that, do you, does that resonate with you?
Joel Warsh: Yeah. I mean, that, that's exactly it. It's all of this stuff is so basic and common sense, but we're so confused by big companies, big corporations, because they're doing that on purpose and that are cheaper.
Joel Warsh: Cause again, I mean, their goal as a company, I've said this many times is to make money. If you were a corporation. Your job as CEO is to make more money this quarter than last quarter. It's not a nefarious thing. I'm sure sometimes they do nefarious things, but mostly it's not nefarious. Mostly it's just, they want to [00:36:00] make more money.
Joel Warsh: So their job is to figure out what do I do to get you to buy my product the most and keep buying my product? It's not about how do I keep you healthy? They don't care, right? They don't care if it's an, if it's a by product of it. Great. I mean, smaller companies, sometimes they think about that because they want you to get their products and buy eco friendly products, but big companies don't care.
Joel Warsh: don't care. That's not their job to care. It's our job to push back. Um, we're doing a terrible job at it. And that's why we're where we are, where we are, because we're letting them kind of run things and market to us and, and, Confuse things and put in chemicals and products that we just know are not healthy for us because it's not that complicated.
Joel Warsh: If it's a real thing, if it's a real product, you know, that's good for you. All these synthetics and chemicals are probably not good for you. I mean, maybe they're not all terrible for you, but they're probably not good for you. So if you just simplify and go back to basic stuff. Then like what we did forever, um, probably going to work just fine.
Joel Warsh: You know, and we, we like with food, we had just way overcomplicated it. We way overcomplicates like you eat real food, fruits, [00:37:00] veggies, beets that are, you know, or, you know, fish, whatever it is that if you, unless you're vegan, um, you know, things that are, that are real food that are. living in the real way, not mass produced.
Joel Warsh: And you'll be fine. Like you don't need to think about diets or all these other things. You just eat real stuff and you cook it and prepare it. That's what everybody did forever. Um, and you don't need to know anything more. If you're buying something for your home, like what is a real product that wasn't sprayed in a bunch of crap, that's going to be better for you than something sprayed in a bunch of crap.
Joel Warsh: Even if they say that it's healthy or it's not toxic. Healthy crap.
Julie Michelson: No, thanks.
Joel Warsh: They're just, they're not going to tell you something's not something's toxic until you see them for 10 years. So that's probably not good for you.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Uh, I love that. And again, it doesn't mean you have to live, you know, totally on the edge and, and be, you know, I know people that do, I know people that only use candlelight when the sun goes down.
Julie Michelson: And, um, although then we can talk about their burning candles. So I don't know. Um, But there is [00:38:00] this middle of the road. And, and I love our philosophy is the same about if you make your home, your Haven, if you're cooking your food and your air is clean and your water is purified, and you're not bombarding with chemicals, you're being thoughtful about your choices in your home.
Julie Michelson: That creates that resilience that we were talking to, you know, we can't live in a bubble, like obviously. And we don't want our kids to have to live in a bubble. But if we can control our exposures at home, we can take a little more of that hit out in the outside world. And that's what we're going for is resilience.
Joel Warsh: For sure. And, and again, I, you mentioned, I echo it again. It's not about doing everything. It's not about doing everything right now. It's not about being overwhelmed. You just start from today. If you've never done it, you know, most you'll probably find you have done some stuff, but like, you know, just what can I do?
Joel Warsh: What can I do next? That doesn't be everything. Like if you're You know, financial means are not the best. There are lots of things you can do that are cheaper. Like you can change out your cleaners for [00:39:00] water and vinegar or baking soda. Like there are things that you can do, like you mentioned, like, you know, changing out your soap.
Joel Warsh: You don't have to buy a more expensive soap, just a better soap, you know, without actually is real soap, but it could be cheaper. You just get some real soap and you
Julie Michelson: don't have to make it either. I did that one time, like 10 years ago, like
Joel Warsh: you can, but we're right. The stuff now. So just find a local producer, go to some place that they make it themselves or whatever, and just, you know, buy it.
Joel Warsh: Like these are things that you can do. And, and you change out some of these things, one thing at a time. And as you buy new things, you just buy them with more thought this time. And it just kind of snowballs in a good direction.
Julie Michelson: I love that. I do. I really do. Even I had this conversation earlier in the week with, with a client who made the comment about, um, you know, her grocery bill.
Julie Michelson: And I said, well, let me ask you a question. What's your restaurant bill? Cause they used to eat out all the time, you know? And so we really that like, let's also be honest with, if you're going to be spending a little more at the grocery store, [00:40:00] are you skipping the drive through line? Are you getting a, you know, Did you drop the $7, if you wanna even call it coffee in the morning, you know, like we tend not to pay attention to, to that kind of spending, but we see our grocery bill.
Julie Michelson: Um, and so it does tend to balance out as you start to bring things back in, into the home. But like you said, it, it's one little thing at a time,
Joel Warsh: right?
Julie Michelson: And
Joel Warsh: yes, like grocery bills are going up and if you wanna eat healthy, you're gonna have a higher grocery bill. I mean, there's no question. And that's not
Julie Michelson: grow a little food.
Joel Warsh: People push back on that. And I'm like, okay, fine. You know, yes, it's more expensive, but where should you spend your money? Like where should you spend your money? That to me is the priority. If that's not your priority, so be it. Um, but to me within your budget, whatever that is, that's where it is a lot. And I would sacrifice some other things for healthier food.
Joel Warsh: Um, and that doesn't mean that if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you have to go to an organic farm and, you know, 500, uh, grocery bills every week with the best food in the world. Like that's not what [00:41:00] I'm saying. It's just whatever you can prioritize, whatever you can afford, that's where I would put my focus.
Joel Warsh: And then when you're working with a budget, then become a mindful savvy consumer and figure out, okay, where can I get the best products for the cheapest? You can even order things from places directly. You cut out the middleman and you don't always have as much choice because they're going to send you a box or whatever, but you're going to get a whole bunch of actually like super duper fresh food and it'll be cheaper than if you get at the store because there is no store.
Joel Warsh: Um, so like kind of things exist if you're willing to do it.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I, I agree with the just get started and, and then, you know, bring creativity. And if you need to, or want to, I love the, you know, there's companies now that have like the uglies, they, they have the veggies that aren't pretty enough to go in the store shelf, but they're organic and they're delicious.
Julie Michelson: And so there's lots of options. Once you set your priorities. Um, which I joke, I [00:42:00] used to always overwhelm my clients in the very beginning because we would jump in with food and, you know, do a lot of things. What are you seeing like from that pediatric lens of the impact of stress on kids these days? I
Joel Warsh: mean, I think it's everybody, right?
Joel Warsh: Stress is so high. We were putting more pressure and stress on kids than ever. And of course, if you're constantly stressed and that's going to affect your immune system and your body, and it's one of the other big fact, we didn't really talk about it too much, but it's one of the other big factors I think, and all these autoimmune conditions and conditions, I mean, the chronic stress throws your body off, it throws your hormones off, it throws your immune system off and it puts you at a disadvantage with everything.
Joel Warsh: And eventually, um, if your hormones are off for long enough time, I think that's another big factor in chronic disease.
Julie Michelson: Thank you. I just wanted to not leave it unsaid, um, because I, you know, I, I deal, dealing with it with the adults, right? But, and, but the, I joke, I don't know if it made me a [00:43:00] better mom or a worse mom, but I, I could see the pressure put on kids, you know, my kids at such a younger age.
Julie Michelson: I remember when one of my kids was, um, Like a freshman in high school and having like this major, like he was dealing with anxiety and it come to find out when I finally got really, you know, got him to open up. It was because he was going to a, you know, uh, an IB high school. So, you know, good, you know, it was geared toward go getters and basically they, they had told the, the, the message the kids were receiving was by now you should know what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Julie Michelson: Like, where are you going to college? What? And I was like, well, well, well, no, you know, and I really feel like as a mom, I, which was not common, but I found myself saying like, you know, it's okay, like [00:44:00] nobody cares, you know, yeah, if you have a specific goal to go to a certain college, I'll support you in doing what you need to do.
Julie Michelson: Right. Or even in college, it was like, nobody's looking at your undergrad grades. Like you don't need a 4. 0 plus in college to do whatever, anything you want to do, like reel it in a little bit. Um, but I do feel like it's like a pressure cooker from such an early age now, um, that, that I just wanted to see, like, is that what you're seeing?
Joel Warsh: I think there's a lot of. Um, thinking way far ahead, forget it's like, Oh, isn't
Julie Michelson: that, isn't that considered anxiety?
Joel Warsh: Oh, I want them to get into Harvard. So therefore they need to do these things. So therefore we need to get on these grounds. We need to get them in this school. Okay. Well, if I get in that school, then I have to get them in this.
Joel Warsh: You know, great. Oh, I want to get into that grade school. I got to get my this kindergarten, you know, and you're like putting pressure when they're four to go to Harvard and it's like, okay, well, you know, like if
Julie Michelson: they want to be a farmer, maybe
Joel Warsh: that's not going to be there anymore, you know, or [00:45:00] maybe they can want to get in and they accept, you know, a couple of percent of people, regardless of how good they are.
Joel Warsh: So maybe you should enjoy your life because that may not be what they want to do anyways. And a lot of people get in because they're actually interesting. Do unique things and not follow that exact path. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to get into a good school or something. That that's what you want.
Joel Warsh: I didn't
Julie Michelson: mean it that way. I just, and
Joel Warsh: I know you don't, I'm going to say, you know, I think for parents,
Julie Michelson: I think it used to be parental stress. That now is put on the kids where it used to just be, you know, the parent quietly being up in the middle of the night saying, Oh, this is my kid going to do the things or
Joel Warsh: so much pressure and so much competition for some of these things now, you know, with social media and seeing everybody and every other thing going on that you, you put pressure, they put pressure and there's just a lot of pressure on things that are so.
Joel Warsh: Unimportant or don't end up being a problem anymore. And it's just so constant and then again, it doesn't stress as good a little bit, but not in the way that we're doing. [00:46:00] Um, and it's, it's just such a crazy, crazy time of stress when there's no need a lot of the time to be worried about these things in the way that we are in the amount that we are.
Joel Warsh: So, yeah, I think we. We just, we need to dial it back a little bit.
Julie Michelson: Thank you for that. I, amen. So we're at the point in the conversation where listeners are leaning in because they know I'm going to ask you for one step. We already prefaced anything we're talking about for kids goes for adults or vice versa, because we're all humans, right?
Julie Michelson: So you can gear it to whomever you want, but one step that listeners can start to take today to improve health.
Joel Warsh: I would say again, reading labels. I think that's, that's the biggest key. That's a really easy thing to do. And from now on, when you purchase anything, you're flipping it over, you're reading the label, you're looking at the label and you're seeing what's in it.
Joel Warsh: And once you start to at least acknowledge the stuff that's in things, you're going to be like, Oh, wait, I don't want to buy that. [00:47:00] Even if you don't know that much about it, you can look at it and be like, well, that doesn't sound like it should be in there.
Julie Michelson: I can't pronounce that. Thank you so much for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check out the show notes.
Julie Michelson: Where is the best place to find you?
Joel Warsh: Uh, so the best places to find me would be on Instagram or X at Dr. Joel Gator, or if you do have a young child or pregnant, then, uh, parenting at your child's pace is the book. And you can go to, you know, wherever books are sold or parenting at your child's pace. com.
Julie Michelson: Awesome. And I actually think we should all read it anyway, even if our kids are older, just there's, it's, it's just good, good information and advice. So Dr. Joel Gator, Dr. Joel Warsh, however, we find you. Thank you so much for giving us amazing gold today.
Joel Warsh: Thank you
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get those transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as [00:48:00] much as I did. I'll see you next week.
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Joel Warsh
Joel Warsh aka DrJoelGator of the popular parenting Instagram account is a Board-Certified Pediatrician in Los Angeles, California who specializes in Parenting, Wellness and Integrative Medicine. He is the author of Parenting at Your Child’s Pace: The Integrative Pediatrician’s Guide to the First Three Years.
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