52: Should Kids Eat An Anti-Inflammatory Diet?

It's a polarizing topic, but one that we should care about TODAY: the benefits of an anti-inflammatory diet for our kids.

You might think kids should just be kids, but what if the food they're eating is secretly causing hyperactivity, poor concentration, and long-term health risks?

This week, Ashley makes a compelling case for why a healthy, anti-inflammatory approach is crucial for our children's well-being and shares a practical roadmap for making it happen without food fights.

Healthy Kids, Happy Family: A Balanced Approach to Food:

The "Why" Behind Anti-Inflammatory Eating: Learn how common ingredients in processed snacks (like TBHQ and artificial colors) are linked to hyperactivity, hormone disruption, and other serious health issues, and how removing them can have a lasting positive impact.

Winning Over Your Kids: Get practical strategies for getting your children's buy-in on healthy food. This includes respecting their choices (yes, even school lunches!), offering appealing alternatives, and making healthy eating a fun and collaborative family activity.

Balance Over Perfection: Discover how to focus on your child's overall nutrition over a two-to-three-day period, not just one meal. By filling nutritional gaps with healthy options, you can reduce stress and ensure your kids are getting the fuel they need.

You don't have to choose between healthy kids and happy kids. With a little creativity and the right tools, you can have both!

More Support For You

✅ Get 50+ healthy, kid-approved snacks (that you can buy) with the FREE Healthy After School Snack Guide here.

✅ Cook anti-inflammatory meals for your whole family with this FREE 7-Day Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan.

Transcript

Welcome back to the Family Fork. I am so glad you're here today. And before we get into today's episode, I just want to have a moment of celebration because this episode marks number 52. That means we've had one full year of the Family Fork podcast. And I am so grateful that you have been on this journey with me. Honestly, I just knew that there was more that I

wanted to share more than I wanted to say, and it didn't fit nicely into an Instagram post or an email. So I knew that podcasting was a better platform for me to share. And since that time, we have had 52 episodes, counting this one, over 15,000 downloads. We're in the top 10 % of all downloads. And what's great is I know this podcast has helped thousands of moms and families.

to feel supported in eating healthier, having more energy and just feeling better overall. That was truly my goal. And so today just feels like a very momentous milestone.

So thank you for being a part of this journey. And I hope that we get to stick together for another year with all sorts of great content and things to support you and your family in eating and feeling your best.

So today I wanna get into something that I think might be a little bit of a polarizing topic, but it is something that I feel so passionate about. And that's the idea of whether or not kids need an anti-inflammatory diet. So I know some people think that I'm crazy and that's fine. I think there's a lot of people who believe just let kids be kids and enjoy the food that they eat and everything will turn out okay.

But I know differently, the older that I get and the health challenges that I have had to contend with, I don't want my kids or my grandkids to have to struggle in the same way. And so if I can do something about that now, you better believe that I'm gonna do something to help sort of shift that tide.

I think that sometimes people hear anti-inflammatory for kids and you know, they think, maybe, maybe the kids aren't going to get enough calories or they're just going to be eating vegetables. They're not going to get enough nutrients. And that's just not true. And we'll talk about that in a minute, but I feel really passionate about this topic. Now it's, if you're listening to this in real time, it's back to school time. And with school comes a lot of food that your kids start eating and

have access to that you just can't be in control of anymore. Specifically, I'm thinking like school lunches that are just filled with processed ingredients. know, your kids sit in the cafeteria next to other kids that are having treats and other things that your kids probably are not having, but that they want to have. And then I think too about like candy and snacks and treats at afterschool programs or sports or whatever else you've got going on after school. So they're

comes with back to school time, a situation where you're not in control as much with the food that your kiddos eat. And that could lead to them having a lot of foods that maybe you don't find are as healthy. least that's how I feel.

Before we jump into whether or not it's appropriate for kids to eat an anti-inflammatory diet, let's remember a little bit about exactly what it is. we always remember very easily that an anti-inflammatory diet is like taking away processed ingredients and sugars and ⁓ gluten and dairy.

things that can actually be harmful to a body. But the thing that we often forget about is that anti-inflammatory means adding in foods that are supportive to health overall and can really contribute to reducing inflammation. And just because they're kids doesn't mean that they don't have inflammation. They do, they have stress, they have illnesses. They also have things that are

creating inflammation in their bodies. So if we can do something about that, if we can give them foods that help reduce that inflammation, I think it's probably an okay thing.

One of the things that an anti-inflammatory diet will do specifically for kids is that it is removing a lot of those processed ingredients that are linked to really damaging health consequences like hyperactivity, poor concentration, obesity, type two diabetes, hormone disruption, improper brain development, cellular damage, and even cancer.

I know you don't want this for your kids. I don't want this for my kids either. So it is really important that we start looking at how we can remove harmful foods.

I talk a little bit more about this in a free guide that I have for you called the Healthy Afterschool Snack Guide. I'll put a link for that in the show notes so you can learn a little bit more about some of these ⁓ preservatives and ingredients that are used in processed foods here in the United States. But I also want you to remember that adding in anti-inflammatory foods can help decrease the likelihood that

any of these types of health concerns will come up for our kids in the near future and in later life. So I've said it before, I think that all women over the age of 35 should be eating an anti-inflammatory diet, but I also think it's important for your kids. And this is why everything that I do, I teach family friendly nutrition that is anti-inflammatory so that it's really easy for everyone in your family.

to benefit from eating this way.

Now I get it, this is not always easy. So if you are new around here, you may not know I have a 24 year old son and a six year old daughter. So I've already raised a teenager. I know how a teenage boy, nonetheless, I know that when you already have patterns of eating in your family, ⁓ you you have common like foods and snacks and things that you enjoy together, it can be really difficult to

to change those habits, especially with teenagers. They honestly, they think they know it all and really at the end of the day, they just wanna belong. They want to do what their friends are doing, eat what their friends are eating. And so if all their friends are going to McDonald's or Burger King, they wanna do that too, even though we know that that is not the food that we want them having. So it can be difficult, but I promise you not all hope is lost.

And so today I really want to share exactly what I do because I believe in balance and being able to make nutrition work for everyone in your food. I don't want you spending time arguing over food in your house. And really my approach is easy and doable and reasonable. I get it. I'm just like you. You are working full time. You are juggling.

family life and career and all the other things that come along with that. Maybe you're like me where you're also taking care of aging parents and there's a lot on your plate. So I don't want food to be a difficult thing. I wanna make it easy, but I know that we can make it healthier than what we're doing today. And really at the end of the day, it's our kids that are gonna benefit the most.

All right, so I want to share with you six different things that I do in order to incorporate anti-inflammatory nutrition into our house so that my kiddos are really getting the benefit.

First, I want to encourage you to really steer clear of the major offenders, ⁓ major offenders in terms of preservatives or artificial colors or flavors. And again, I've given you some information about these major offenders in that afterschool snack guide. So be sure to check that out.

But one of the biggest offenders is a preservative called TBHQ. And if you have teenagers, your teens are eating a lot of this. This is a particular preservative that has definitely been linked to hormone disruption, cellular damage, and cancer. And where you're seeing this is everywhere. So it's in lots of packaged foods, chips.

Takis are a big one if your kiddos are eating those takis the rolled chips, packaged cookies, donuts, snack bars, frozen pizza. How many frozen pizzas are your teens eating? ⁓ Chicken nuggets, ramen, and other instant noodles.

So if you can be really diligent about picking a couple of things like TBHQ and artificial colors, for example, and then working with your kids to find alternatives that they will be okay with, your kids are going to benefit. They're not going to struggle with inability to concentrate or hormone disruption. And really that's the goal. So if you can pick a couple that feel really important to you,

I think that's a really good place to start. So for me, it's TBHQ, artificial colors and artificial flavors. Those are just things that I will not have in our house at all.

Now I mentioned that it's important to find alternatives. so I really want you to figure out like, what are some alternatives that work for me that my kids are also going to buy into? So one of the things that's hard for me is Kona ice. I don't know if you have this in your area. It's a truck that drives around to schools and sporting events in different places. And it's shaved ice, but

what you pour over the shaved ice is this like syrup that's rich with artificial colors and artificial flavors. And I always say that it goes from tongue to toilet. It is coloring. Like if you look at your kids after they eat Kona ice, their tongues are blue or red and that color stays for a long time and it goes all the way through. So when they're eliminating all of that, it is also a different color and that

when you see that, amount of coloring, when it goes all the way through your body, it is very, very highly likely that that's causing a lot of inflammation and disruption to the systems in the body. So as an alternative, I offer up popsicles that I have previously agreed on. So Suraya is my six-year-old and she really loves

Johnny Pops, we've tried a lot of different popsicles and those are her favorite and she loves the ones in rainbow. So when I know that it is Kona Ice Day at school, I will ask her not to get Kona Ice and then I come to see to pick her up after school with a popsicle. So she doesn't feel like she's left out. She still has something that she enjoys, but I feel good about it. And really, I think a lot of this starts with just having conversations and education at home.

I've talked with Suraya enough about why I don't like Kona ice and that it's not because I want to be an annoying or mean mom. I just really want her to be healthy. And so I think the more we talk about it and then the more I offer alternatives that work for her, the easier it is for her to say, no, I don't really need the Kona ice. And so we have gotten to that point where she's just not that interested and she gets more excited about the popsicle.

The third thing that you can do is really feed healthy meals at home. And that all starts with getting family buy-in. If your family's not bought into what you are making that are deemed healthy meals at home, you're going to have arguments. So I think this really starts with modeling healthy choices. my family, my kids will see me eat chocolate every single day, but it's just a small amount and it's really in moderation.

And so I like to talk a lot about the benefits of eating in moderation, having more healthy foods than junk foods. One of the things that if you ask Suraya, she can tell you, if you look at a plate, she can tell you what's protein, what's carb, what's a healthy fat. And she knows that protein gives you more energy. She knows that carbohydrates give you energy and help you feel full and satisfied.

She knows that protein helps build muscle. So I think teaching some of these basic concepts, it allows kids, especially when you have younger kids, it allows them to grow up and be able to go out into the world and say, ⁓ I'm gonna pick a plate of foods at a restaurant and I know exactly what I'm eating and how that's going to benefit my body. But like I said, it really comes down to honoring your kiddo's choice and respecting what it is that they are asking for.

So one of the things that I do to kind of strike that balance is that I let Suraya choose which school lunches that she wants to eat during the week. And this is even when they're offering cheese stuffed breadsticks as a meal. I don't really understand that because I don't know how, like, I guess the cheese counts as the protein. I don't know. And the tomato sauce maybe is the vegetable. I think that's a disgusting meal, but

I also know that she really likes it. She will eat it. And if I am feeding a healthy breakfast and a healthy dinner, then I just kind of have to be okay with what Suraya is having. That way she can eat with her friends at lunch. She can feel like she fits in. And then I'm trying to provide healthy meals around that. And also like snacks at school, I send her, if you have younger kids, you know, you're sending them to school with a couple of snacks throughout the day. And so those are

healthy snacks as well. But then Suraya has some choice and I'm respecting her choice. I let her choose. I don't judge what meals she picks for the school lunch or not. I just let her choose and that makes it easier to get her buy-in and makes it easier for her to say, yeah, I'll eat that healthy dinner. Cause I had cheese stuffed breadsticks for lunch.

The fourth thing that we do in our house is we do offer up vitamins and probiotics. And the vitamins are really there to just kind of fill the nutritional gaps. And the probiotics, I think, do the same thing in terms of just balancing gut health, especially when there are foods being eaten that are not necessarily in alignment with what I think are healthy.

So for the vitamins that we use, our favorite are the Hiya vitamins. It's H-I-Y-A. I love these vitamins. They're super, super clean and they're a chewable vitamin. I learned this last year that gummy vitamins, I think are the number one leading cause to cavities in kids. And the reason is because they get stuck in their teeth and

I don't know about you, but this happens all the time. I'm like, I forgot the vitamin while we're running out the door to do school drop-off. I'm like, here, take the vitamins. And so if you're doing this with gummy vitamins, those gummy vitamins are just staying stuck in your kiddo's teeth all day long. So I don't prefer a gummy vitamin. The Haya ones are very clean. Suraya loves them and they're...

The Hiya vitamins are very clean. Suraya loves them. They taste fine and they're not a gummy. So that makes me feel good. As for the probiotic, the one that I prefer is a kid's probiotic from a company called Balance One. And you can just get these on Amazon. So I think between these two things, it's helping to balance out some of the gut health that might be disrupted by the foods that kids are eating during the day.

And then those vitamins are really helping to support those nutritional gaps that might be happening as well.

All right, number five, it's time to make food fun. Now I know that this is definitely easier with younger kids, but you can get your teens excited about this too. So like one of the things that we make that's really fun is these chocolate dipped banana bites. And you can buy these at the store, you can buy these at, you know, restaurants or fast food places. But what we do is we just mash already ripe

bananas and we press that mashed banana into small molds. We freeze that and when that's all frozen, then we dip it in melted chocolate. And I really prefer to use Hu chocolate chips. It's H-U, Hu Kitchen. ⁓ Those seem to melt the best and coat the frozen bananas best. And so we dip them in the chocolate. Maybe we add some sea salt or some spring colored sprinkles.

and then we put it back in the freezer. And then all of a sudden we have a really fun snack. I offered up a ton of fun snack ideas in the afterschool snack guide. Again, I just linked to that down in the show notes. But the more fun you can make your healthy food, the easier it is for kids to get on board and say, yeah, okay, that looks really fun. Like I sent Suraya off with a yogurt parfait this morning.

but it's in a cute paper cup that has polka dots. It's like a, I think it was an orange cup with white polka dots and it has a matching orange spoon. It's super cute. It's yogurt and honey and fruit, but she will eat it because it looks fun and she gets excited. So I know that that's a little bit easier with the younger ones, but you can try and get your teens involved in that too. And be sure to check that snack guide because I put a bunch of ideas on how to make your food fun in that guide.

Alright, lastly, I think it's important to prioritize fun over food when it comes to parties and events. In the United States anyway, we have come to focus on food first. And it's not always really healthy food. So when you think about it, like think about a birthday party, there's cake, the cake has artificial colors and artificial flavors.

When you're putting out bowls of snacks, there's Cheetos and chips and pizza and like the frozen finger foods. All of those things are filled with the preservatives and processed ingredients that can be harmful. Sodas, juice boxes that have artificial colors. So I think what we need to do is sort of pivot and start focusing on the fun. So a couple of ways you can do that. You can give your kids a snack before you go to that event.

That helps because you can kind of be in control of the food that you're offering, but also then your kiddos get to the event and they're not as hungry for all of the junk food that's being offered. Now granted, they're gonna have some of it and that's okay. Remember, we talked about moderation, but if your kids are full, maybe they'll have a half a piece of cake instead of a full piece. The other thing you can do is really play up the fun part of the event. What is it that they're gonna do? ⁓

What kind of friends will be there? What are they excited about? ⁓

For example, in our area, we have a place called Slick City and it's tons and tons of different slides and the kids get so excited to go there. And so even though it might be a birthday party event there, we can talk more and play up the slides and what kind they're gonna try and how many times they wanna try going down the monster slide. And then there's less of a focus on the food because

the food there might not be as healthy as we would like it to be.

So think it can be really helpful to just play up the fun and sort of deprioritize the food when it comes to events where there are going to be, you know, there's going to be some junk food.

So to me, it's not even a question that kids can absolutely benefit from an anti-inflammatory diet and so can you. So that's why I make it so easy for you, your entire family to eat this way. But I get it, it's different, right? It might not be as close to what you're eating today. And so I think shifting the tide, that's really the hardest part.

Food here in the United States, our food is made differently than it is in other countries. We somehow allow different ingredients that we're finding out now, those ingredients can be more harmful to a body. Whereas other countries don't allow those ingredients. And it can be really difficult when your kids, they just wanna fit in with their friends by eating Takis and drinking Dr. Pepper. And I also get it like,

resistance from your kids, the last thing you want after a really long day of work and after school sports and activities is battling with your kids over what they are eating or what you don't want them to eat. So I get it. I get it. But this is why I want you to try and find a balance. And I truly believe with all of my heart that the resources that I offer for you are

The resources that I offer for you truly have balance. I understand that your kids are going to eat school lunches or they're going to drink the Dr. Pepper. So how can we do, so how can you do your part to make sure that the other meals that they're eating are filling in their nutritional gaps, helping them to feel healthy and reducing the inflammation that they are struggling with as well.

So I have linked to a couple of resources, free resources down below that are going to make it easier for you. I have a seven day anti-inflammatory guide that gives you everything you need for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. And it is positioned for women in perimenopause who want to lose weight, but it is designed so that it works for your entire family. I promise you, if you follow that for one week, your whole family is going to feel the positive effect.

And with that guide, you only have to cook three nights a week. So I mean, that's a win in my book, right? And then the other one is the one that I have been mentioning a couple of times in this episode, the healthy afterschool snack guide. It is a list of over 50 snacks that you can buy that are also free of major preservatives and ingredients that are deemed as harmful. So I know you don't always have time to like home make from scratch.

all the snacks and all the food that your kids and your family are eating. But I think that this snack guide gives you a ton of alternatives and I've given you lots of suggestions for how to make that food fun and enjoyable so that it's like a treat so that you get better buy-in from your kids.

I hope this has been a helpful episode for you today. And if you hadn't really thought before about how your kids are eating, I hope it changes the way that you think a little bit and that it helps you to recognize that anti-inflammatory eating for your kids is extremely beneficial now and for their future. And that it's actually not as hard or scary as you might think. And it isn't just a bunch of

kale chips. It can be way better than that. Thanks for joining me today. I would love for you to share this episode with another mom who you know would like to feed her family healthier foods, but is really struggling with where to get started. And hopefully this will benefit her family as well. Until next time.