Podcast Episode #24: Are You Making Your Kids Fat?

Ben Greenfield (0:00)

Podcast, episode number 24 from bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Welcome to the bengreenfieldfitness.com podcast. My name is Ben Greenfield, and I'm a certified personal trainer, nutritionist, and exercise physiologist. Each week, I'll be bringing you cutting edge information on nutrition, fitness, and sports performance, including interviews with leading experts in health, diet, and exercise fields. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to lose a few pounds, you're guaranteed to find content from bengreenfieldfitness.com that breaks the mold of run-of-the-mill wellness advice and helps you reach your goals as quickly as possible.

Hey, podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield, and in today's podcast, episode number 24, we're gonna be covering a problem that is pretty serious, because basically what's happening right now in our country is that kids are dying of diseases that adults used to primarily be afflicted with, primarily cardiovascular issues related to nutrition and physical activity that kids shouldn't be having to deal with, but they are, and part of it is because of the choices and the examples that we as adults are giving them. And so whether or not you have children, this issue is important for you because you are the person who influences the decisions that children make, and also you're going to be affected by the cost that's going to be afflicted upon Americans based off of the rising cost of health care, the rising amount of money that we spend on health care, taking care of kids who are suffering from childhood obesity and many of the metabolic syndromes associated with that. And so today's interview is going to be with Monica Reinagle, who is a well-respected nutritionist and host of the Nutrition Diva's Quick and Dirty Tips, a fantastic weekly podcast that I listen to full of practical tips. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. We're also going to be going over a listener Q&A on calcium and ways that you can get calcium if you're allergic to dairy or if you simply want to limit the amount of milk in your diet. I'm going to be once again giving out a special coupon code discount for the GymStick, my favorite portable exercise tool. And then finally, for you triathletes out there who are getting ready to tackle this year's race season, if you've signed up for Ironman Coeur d'Alene or Ironman Canada, you are going to want to keep listening. I'm going to be revealing some pretty cool things I have available for you in just a few minutes. So let's go ahead and start right into the content this week from bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Listener Q&A. Now if you enjoy the listener Q&A, I would highly suggest that you jet over to the website trainingpeaks.com, because I also run a Q&A over on that website, primarily related to sports performance and wellness. So trainingpeaks.com, it's a fantastic piece of online training software. It's the software that I use to coach all the athletes and the clients that I work with online from all over the world. And in that blog, I also have a Q&A, which includes some topics that I don't go over on this show. But in this week's listener Q&A, I'm actually going to be responding to a question that one of my clients asked me this week while we were working out. I do face-to-face kind of like a concierge style personal training service where I help people out with their nutrition, their personal training, their stress management, their wellness, just as much as possible on a month-to-month basis here in Spokane, Washington. So I get a lot of questions from these clients. And one of my clients is very sensitive to dairy products, almost like a dairy allergy, a lactose intolerance. And she is concerned about bone density. She's concerned about calcium intake. Well, of course, the first thing that I tell people is that when you're concerned about calcium intake and you're concerned about bone density, you need to be sure to limit the amount of processed sugars in your diet because sugars can cause an acidic environment within the body. And one of the most alkaline or non-acidic substances in your body is calcium. And so if you're on a high-sugar diet, your body will often leach calcium from the bones to bring your pH back to a normal level. In my opinion, the problem with osteoporosis in our country is not necessarily inadequate calcium intake. I think people are actually getting far too much milk and dairy products, and that's an entirely different issue with hormones.

But the underlying issue that I think is far more serious than inadequate dairy intake is sugar intake and way too much processed sugar. And yes, anything with flour in it is considered a processed sugar substance. So even if you're cutting candy and sweets and soft drinks out of your diet, are you cutting pasta out of your diet? Are you limiting your intake of rolls? How about those healthy pitas, healthy wheat wraps that you're consuming? Those type of things can actually have an effect on your bone density and your calcium intake.