4 Teens On A Mission To Revolutionize Teen Health

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation, and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host, Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

As many of you know, I went on my first diet when I was 13 years old. It was Weight Watchers and it shifted how I viewed my body for a decade. I saw it as something weak and that I could control. It would take years of nutritional, mind, and body studies to realize my body was never the enemy I was taught to see it as. I sometimes wonder how things might have been different if I had learned as a kid and teenager how to interact with my body and food from a place of trust. I eventually would see a nutritionist when I was twenty years old and it was she who told me sometimes you will overeat and sometimes you may undereat but when you zoom out over a month you'll see that your body got the nutrition it needed. Learning this bodily trust at a younger age might have offered a framework for how to safely land inside of my body rather than constantly leaving it.

Today, I chat with The Holistic Kids. Abdullah, Zain, Emaad and Qasim Ansari, 17,14,12, and 10, are the hosts of The Holistic Kids’ Show Podcast, national speakers, and co-authors of the book The Teen Health Revolution: Lifestyle Secrets to Optimize Your Mind, Body, and Soul. The Holistic Kids have lectured at the leading integrative and functional medicine conferences, including being the first youth speakers at the 2024 International Institute of Functional Medicine, A4M 2025 and The Health Business Growth Collective Summit 2025. The Holistic Kids have been featured in top podcasts and print and online media outlets like Wellness Mama podcast,Rational Wellness Podcast and The Holistic Primary Care Magazine. We chat about their journey to learning more about holistic health, discovering the impact of food on their health and wellbeing, their revolutionize acronym, the importance of mindfulness, how they have navigated technology and social media when everyone around them is using it more and more, the role of nature, stress management, and play in health.

Before we dive in, ways you can support the Satiated podcast include please leave a review anywhere that you listen to podcasts to help others find the show. You can also check out all of my affiliate links, join Satiated+ and be able to Ask Me Anything each month, or check out working with me 1:1 or in any of my programs. I have self paced programs and my three month live Somatic Eating® Program which you can join the waitlist for. The next class will be in October. All links are in the show notes. Now, welcome the Holistic Kids! I think this is my first interview with more than one person in the room, so I'm excited to have you all here today. And as we get started, I'd love for any one of you to kind of share how you got into being so passionate about teenage health and mental health, and how you got into this work that you are giving out in the world.

The Holistic Kids 03:49

Thank you so much for having us on your podcast. I mean, it's really an honor. We're like, we're so thankful. Yeah, we were really, really honored. Thank you so much. And I think this really, this story and this journey really just started from our background, so all of our parents, all of our aunts our uncles our grandparents, they're all in the medical field, but when we were sick, no one really knew what was going on, like I felt with, I dealt with uncontrollable mood issues, and there's also, I know, there's like also sinus issues, and lots of brain issues, and no one really knew what was going on, and so, especially with us and our mom, we went on this journey, like, as a really, really small kid on just learning and figuring out why is this going on. We figured out holistic medicine, and that's all about lifestyle, and that's all about what we're putting inside of our bodies, and that's how we started being more involved in this, but during Covid, when everyone was worried about their health, we've been learning so much. So, our mom was like, "You know what? How about you guys start your own podcast to start teaching other kids about this, because we've got it figured out, but we haven't fully gotten it figured out. So, now we can interview all of these world-renowned experts and Harvard professors and New York Times bestselling authors on our podcast, learned a lot, and a lot of the other like kids and teens around everywhere were just tuning in and learning about it. Plus, we went to school, and I, in high school, walking down the halls, I used to see, you know, teens not just suffering physically or mentally, but also emotionally, like it was all aspects, and even spiritually, we have no, we lack a sense of purpose, we have no clue what we're doing with our lives, just like walking on like zombies, basically, you know, from one class to another, and nobody is teaching us what we should do next, and how to bring that light back into our lives, and so we're like, how can we help educate other teens and help other people finally find their way back and give them hope so that they can live the life that they've always been wanting and reach their true potential. And health class, they just teach us that, like, drugs are like bad, and they don't teach us the holistic input. Yeah, that's why we talked about, like, conventional doctors aren't really taught this, and not a lot of people are really taught this, so it's really important that we start at the beginning when it comes to the children and the youth, so they could grow and they could learn, and then they could implement it for a more successful future, and that's how, after that, we were, we were thinking, okay, where is the next step, what should we do next? And we thought of why don't we come out with a book, so we came up with the teen health revolution, where we gave, you know, simple expert-backed lifestyle tips that anybody can use, especially teens, that they can use to improve their mind, body, and soul. And so it's been a journey until now, and we're still basically on a book tour came out december 12, and so that's what we've been doing, and you know, we just want to go back and educate schools, get this information into schools, you know, we'll speak and bring awareness to the issues that our generation is currently facing.

Stephanie Mara 06:58

Yeah, super cool. I mean, when I was all of your ages, not to age myself, all I was learning about was how to diet. I was not learning about how to feed myself. I wasn't learning how to take care of my body. I'm curious, as you got more into this, like, what do you feel like were some of the major things that you started to discover in just being like, oh, there's a very different way to take care of my body. What do you think was the most kind of profound things that you started to learn?

The Holistic Kids 07:27

For I just love the idea that different foods and different nutrients and the different things that you put inside your body really impact your body in so many different ways. I mean, I know a lot of people might think that, you know, oh, this medication is gonna help with skincare. Well, there's so much different types of foods that could also help with, let's say, detoxification, and so much other ones that'll help with your gut health, and so much ones that help with your brain health, or it's your physical, or like muscles, you know. And there's all these different types of amazing different nutrients and different types of foods that I thought it was really, really cool that if we were consuming more of them, we would have to be taking all these medications constantly. And I remember we talked to Deanna Minich, actually, and she was talking about, you know, like how each color of the rainbow and each color of fruit basically helps eat, like, your body in its own unique way. Yeah, like different color, like my brother is saying, different colors of food help us in different ways, for example, like red actually lowers inflammation, orange helps reproductive and eye health, then yellow help with digestive health, green with detoxification, blue with brain health, that all helps with sulforaphane, which helps glucoraphanin, which helps detoxification, and so we've learned so much from detoxifying to stress management to how people can heal, teens can especially heal through chronic diseases through lifestyle, and I mean 200 plus episodes, there's just so much information that we could possibly share that we've learned, but and it's been, and it's been amazing.

Stephanie Mara 08:57

Yeah, I really hear that it kind of opened up your perspective of how much food can do for your body in regards to how much it can bolster your organ functions and help you be able to operate very well in the world and help your brain to maybe think clearly when you're at school. I'm curious, how you've spread that out, because I know something that you started to play with, what you maybe wrote in your book about this whole concept of revolutionize, and that was actually an acronym for something that you created.

The Holistic Kids 09:30

Yeah, so we turned the revolution into an acronym to educate themselves and implement like key principles. It also just makes it easier to put into chapters, so you go like R, which equals revolutionize the gut, E for eat real food, V vanquish toxins, O optimize stress management, L love nature, U unite with others, T tech limits, I invest in sleep, O Open to gratitude and purpose, N navigate your decisions of mindfulness, and so we decided that these teens can use this revolution to revolutionize the physical and mental self. We also go over 20 plus chronic conditions that teens are dealing with, like acne and digestive issues, mood disorders, like Zain would mention, and we wanted them to use this integrative approach to help them add to the, you know, their conventional care, and you know, we could thank our mom for that, because she's the doctor and she was able to put her expertise in there, but I remember I was talking to one of my classmates and I was telling them, oh, you know, you can do this to help heal this, and you don't actually have to always be stuck on pills your entire life, and that you can actually just get back to eating real food, and that can really, really, really extremely help, you know, her kind of condition. They're like, what, nobody ever told me that. I thought that, you know, I had to take this if I wanted to get better but, I didn't know there's any other option, any other choice. And so I was just thinking to myself, why isn't this out there? And so we wanted to make it simple and easy, because, like, for us, even we can't really read health, like comprehensive health books that are like pages upon pages long, but tons and tons of information, and we can't even get past the first chapter, and so we were like, if we can't even read those books, how are we going to expect other teens to read those books, and if adults can't even read those like health books, then how is anybody, any normal, like any person who's not an expert, going to understand and be able to implement those key principles into their life? So we wanted to make it simple, easy, and practical.

Stephanie Mara 11:33

Yeah, I mean, I wonder what have you noticed changed in all of your lives, because you're talking about a huge change, like I know when I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was fit in, and if that meant getting a cell phone, I got a cell phone. If that meant like eating whatever anybody else was eating, I did that. So I'm wondering, like, what you're asking, even in some of those acronyms, of like getting out more in nature, being off of tech more, which is like really hard in this day and age, when we're all being like drawn, like we're literally recording this on technology right now. I'm wondering how you've all navigated that change, and what made you want to continue doing that, even if it was different than like your friends or the people you were hanging out with.

The Holistic Kids 12:20

Well, we did this because, again, it's helping our body, and everybody else does it, really is just negatively inviting them. So, like, why would we want to do something that negatively impact our body? So, we chose our path. Yeah, I think there's some like really obvious things, like when you don't get enough sleep, you can definitely feel it, and if we get more sleep, you're gonna be so much more energized, and it's the same with food, and it's the same with managing toxins. It's just you don't really know how it feels until you actually go towards that. Like, once we start learning all about these foods, we feel so much better and so much more refreshed, and now we're sleeping more, we're vanquishing toxins, we're doing all these things that are influencing our lifestyle so powerfully, and a lot of teens and kids don't even know this exists, unfortunately. And that's why, for us, even though a lot of people, they ask, "Oh, but how do you do this if everybody else is doing, you know, the opposite thing? Or now, at school, people are looking at, like, I look at our lunches, and they look, they know, like all my friends, they know that you know I only eat natural food, I know what my food does for me, I know you know why I need to sleep on time, because our mom educated us on why we need to detoxify, why we need to go into nature. So, even if we don't want to go into nature, we already can know what to convince ourselves. Oh, you know what? Wait a second, that helps with our mood, it helps with our stress management, it helps with so many aspects of our life. And then, when it comes to food, and when it comes to sleep, and when it comes to gratitude, even when we feel like, when we're surrounded by a world of negativity, we know, okay, gratitude is what's going to shift our subconscious from that negative to positive. It's going to help us retrain our thoughts and eventually actions, so that we can be even more successful. So, all of those people who are doing this, they're basically, they're really just missing out on like a lot of stuff, and we feel the difference. We've been doing this for 10 years, and I started this when I was, what, seven years old. I remember how my life was before, when I was eating McDonald's, and my favorite food was flaming hot Cheetos and Fanta, and now we haven't had those in like 10 plus years, and there we feel such a huge and big difference. Yeah, like it will talk about like there's so much negativity world, especially with the phones, like you look on Instagram, or maybe on different like social media platforms, you see what everybody else has, and you compare to yourself. Oh, so my house is this crazy house, I don't have that, like there's so much negativity on it. Let me just spend so much hours in this virtual world. The only highlights good in people's lives, and again, like your subconscious governs 90% of our thoughts and actions. So, having that really like positive attitude is really important.

Stephanie Mara 13:06

Yeah, something that I hear, which I'm totally on the same page with all of you. You know, my background is in somatics, which is basically just paying attention to how we feel in our body. What I really hear is all of you were really paying attention to, okay, when I eat these different foods, or when I put my body out in nature, I feel better, and I really hear that that's kind of what guided you to continue to kind of maybe eat differently or put your body into different environments because of how you felt.

The Holistic Kids 15:40

Definitely, and the expression I think this really comes from the ability to be mindful, and now you might be asking, what is mindful? You may be here and like mindful breathing, but like, what is that? Well, we like to say mindfulness, and what it is, is mindfulness is just it's either listening, smelling, it's basically all your senses, and it's staying in the present, when teens have the power of being mindful, they can realize what they're doing is right or realize what they're doing is wrong and change that, and I think it's so important to be mindful, because I think a lot of teenagers and kids now are constantly on the go, either it's from class to class or it's from break to break, or we're always scrolling, you know, there's not this time to understand what we're feeling and what we're like, either it's what we're thinking about or what we're smelling, and it's so important because that strengthens our ability to understand what we are doing right and what we're doing wrong, and that's how, if any, imagine a world where all the teens around the world are mindful. Imagine where we could go, and how our next generation could, how successful we could be if we started taking back control of our bodies. If we start taking back control of our minds, and right now, you know, like Zain was mentioning, we're basically living on a hamster wheel, we're just stuck to it, addicted to our phones. We're basically chained to food companies and chained to what other people say about us. We're, you know, we're not actually.. we think as teens we want to be free, but in reality we're not. And that's why we're trying to open people's eyes again. And we had our eyes open to how much better our life could be when we actually started to be mindful, knowing what we're doing when we're doing it, actually knowing why we're putting this food into our mouth, like I remember we interviewed someone and they said that every single food they eat can either help you or hurt you, and so just thinking about that was like just like mind blowing, thinking that people just pull over between their mouth because, oh, it feels good. Oh, I just like the taste of it. Oh, you know, I just want it right now. When in reality, that could be destroying your gut microbiome, destroying your mental health, destroying your physical health, and even contributing to so many more problems in your life. And it's so easy, and I know it's like people say, "Oh no, but it's so hard to do it" and that's because, yes, it's an addiction, but once you start to replace those fake foods with real foods, once you start to replace your technology with finally being mindful and actually going outside, when you start replacing all of those negative aspects of your life that are really keeping you controlled to one company or another, or one thing to another, then once you free yourself from that, that's when true success happens, and that's when you can really unlock your true potential. I also remember someone saying, if you eat junk, then your brain works like junk.

Stephanie Mara 18:33

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm curious, when just in the example of describing mindfulness, how this has all played out in your lives, like, how have you practiced mindfulness? What has that looked like throughout your day?

The Holistic Kids 18:47

Well, we start off and wake up with gratitude and mindfulness by saying 10 things we're grateful for, and really just anytime we're stressed, we always breathe in, breathe out, and like, we pray five times a day, so that's mindfulness right there, and kind of do it there. Yeah, especially like, you know, just like going outside, and I know there's a lot of like really cool things outside, like it's either the birds or it's either the wind, or it's either probably even the cars where we live in the suburbs, and there's all these different types of noises that we can listen to, and there's probably so much difference of smells, and there's so much different types of things that you can just like take in what I like to do is I like to go like early in the morning, like whenever I have time, you know, get a drink of water and just sit down, and it's so relaxing and it's so peaceful, and especially just starting your day with that is really amazing, and it's strengthening your brain. Yeah, like also Zain habit stacks, because he goes, he goes outside, and then he has water, hydration, and mindfulness. After my school, every morning they do mindfulness morning. So then we take like two minutes and do like deep breaths. Yeah, actually, like Gus said, the mindful breathing is all just taking a deep breath in and a deep breath out. Especially, because now that I'm in college, sometimes if I need to, you know, just, you know, if I'm dealing with any stretch, anything, just being in the moment, thinking, what am I smelling around me, what am I feeling around me, what am I seeing, it just helps so much, and I really feel the difference after.

Stephanie Mara 20:13

Yeah, how have you seen that maybe affect how you've navigated school, or homework, or friend conflict, like, how have you seen that? Then doing those practices affect other areas of your life.

The Holistic Kids 20:27

I think it all just comes to, I mean, first of all, there's your attention span, and I think that when you're more mindful, your attention span tends to be better. You can listen to what other people are trying, what other people are trying to say, and you can function through class without having to, you know, either you sleep or constantly have to do something, you know, and I think in a world where we're constantly scrolling and moving past things, it's so important to be mindful to strengthen, first of all, your attention span, and second of all, you need to also like just strengthen your ability to understand your either your emotions and other people's emotions and what you're doing right and wrong, like I said before, and I think mindfulness plays a big role in like that, and it comes to, let's say, friendships, because how are you supposed to know if someone else is feeling better or if someone else is feeling bad if you can't even, like, if you can't even understand your own emotions, like it just very destructive when you're not mindful. It's so easy to teach mindfulness, especially like parents are watching, just teaching kids how to breathe, teaching kids to just stop and think about what they're doing and why they're doing it. I remember when we were going down, like, the our mom taught us to read ingredients when at a young age, and we are going down like the food aisle, and there was some kind of candy or some kind of cereal I really liked, and instead of saying no, just don't have it, she said, Okay, if you want it, first of all, you know, look at the back, look at the ingredients, and tell me which each of those ingredients are, and being like seven years old, I'm trying to read them, and it's a bunch of chemical names, I have no clue how to pronounce, and she said, Do you think those are good for you or bad for you? I'm like, they're probably bad for me, and so now I know that that's what I'm putting into my body, and like I said, if more teens can be mindful, then they could start making better choices, and their brain just works better overall.

Stephanie Mara 22:15

Yeah, I really hear just all the practices that have really supported you, and feeling maybe more present, and you know, moving through life with more ease has been like practices of gratitude. Also, just being mindful of, like, your surroundings, and really taking them in. And I really hear you, you know, like you said, just all the scrolling that we're doing, or the, you know, looking down at our phones doesn't really lend itself to using all of our senses to be very aware of our surroundings and what's going on around us. You know, I'm wondering, even if you have felt more connected to the environment, nature, the world, even in these practices, because sometimes not being aware of what's going around us can feel a little isolating, like we're just all connected to our phones.

The Holistic Kids 22:59

Yeah, especially because a lot of teens now like they're like just glued to their phones, like you're gonna have to really pull it out of their hands to get them to look, you know, like I go to high school and I definitely see it, last year I was in middle school and that's when like phones were banned and I think that it created this like sense of like more people were talking to each other, and more people were interacting, and it was just a different feeling. And now I'm in high school, and now in the hallways, you just take out your phone, and then they, everyone just starts scrolling. So I think that also, like, a lot of teens need to have the responsibility, and I think what Abdul was saying before, tying it back to education, because a lot of teens and kids don't know what's like helping them and what's hurting them. They'll know that the screens are hurting them, they just see, like you were saying, they just wanted to fit in. Everyone else was doing it, they decided to also come on. I think that's very, really different from what we did, because at a young age we were learning about all this stuff, so now when everyone else is doing it, we know what's what's right and what's wrong, and that's a big reason on why we started the podcast. Yeah, and plus, like, all people say, "Oh, but we can't be that addicted to our phones." Well, honestly, we're basically just living on a leash. I remember hearing one of the people I interviewed, they're saying that right now three out of four Americans confess to using their phones on the toilet, while 96% of Gen Z are so they can't even go to the bathrooms without using their phone, it's just like crazy to think that. How have we come to that? And social media people say, oh, they can't affect me that much. I mean, I'm just looking at something right. Well, social media has actually been linked to poor physical health, especially among college students, and you know, those who use excessive social media were actually found to have higher levels of CRP, a blood marker of inflammation that actually predicts chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and a lot of so many other things. Plus, this is, we see this in our schools. Social media is really affecting our mental health, and I know a lot of adults say, oh, you know, teens are mental health is, you know, suffering. Oh, we need to do something about this, especially more adults need to step up to help teens. We see how our friends are going through, we see what our peers, our classmates, everybody that you know we surround ourselves with social media. Yes, it can be both of our source of connection, but can also be a source of stress. And now I think we've experienced is that teens can feel more disconnected from the world than ever before. Yeah, even in my grade, that a lot of people have phones and they have TikTok and like social media. Yeah, so that's really unfortunate that, like, a lot have got them in elementary school, and that's it's kind of crazy, because when I was in elementary school, only like one person in the entire like class, and even like I would say like a couple, only a couple people in the entire grade had phones, and they didn't really have anything, and everyone would just like, you know, like huddle around them, like seeing what they're doing, but and I'm guessing it's probably different from when you were growing up, or from our grandparents were growing up, and when all that stuff was going out, we have, we didn't see this spike of all these physical, mental, spiritual issues that are starting to occur now, and I think that the phone, and what's specifically on the phone, like social media, and the in education found in, like, teens, it's really affects all of this mental health issues, and that's how I remember one person that we interviewed, he basically said, you have to ask yourself, are you controlling your tech, or is the tech controlling you?

Stephanie Mara 23:45

Yeah, yeah, I love everything that you're bringing here, because it is a really interesting conversation of not only teaching teens, probably any adult that is listening to this can resonate with this as well, of feeling like really attached to their phone, constantly taking it to the bathroom with them, of feeling like they can't go to the bathroom without it, and like how much it disconnects us from the reality of this world, and I'm curious, just because you created all of these different areas that you have been teaching other teens on health, and I totally hear you on all the food pieces, can be so supportive, you know, other pieces that you named, just as we're talking about, like decreasing tech usage, getting out in nature, I'm wondering, what is something that maybe doesn't have to do with food, just because sometimes there's so much focus and even pressure on, like, quote unquote eating the right way, that, like, as you're all pointing out, sometimes it's the other things that need our attention as well, that it's like we pay too much attention to the food, we're not paying attention to how we're continuing to feel so stressed out because we're on our phone all day long. I'm curious, if there's any other area you've seen that you've written about or have been interviewing people about that is just as important that you realize made a huge difference for all of you that wasn't just what you were eating.

The Holistic Kids 24:54

I think it's nature, because nature is like people don't really know, but it can help your physical, mental, social, and even spiritual health. Like, yeah, it relieves stress, lowers inflammation, boosts your immune system, so you can buy off diseases, and like improves sleep, and like everything. Yeah, so amazing food, yeah, quality food, yeah, it just helps your body so much, and so many teens are neglecting it. We're mainly on our phones, but also, like, you don't need to be on the nature in nature for like 24 hours a week. You don't need to be there for so long as maybe what most teens may think, or for a very long period of time. All you need to do is maybe do 30 minutes. If you can't do 30 minutes, do 10 minutes, if you can't do 10 minutes, a minute, maybe a minute a day in nature. Just try to incorporate some time in nature, like studies shows that even looking at a picture of nature can give you some of those benefits. Yeah, but that's not all. Don't just say, like, oh, I'm looking at a picture that my nature is on. No, yeah, actually, go out into nature, and I think also, like, stress management is a huge one, like you were just mentioning, like, oh, I might be stressed all the time, and this overwhelming amount of stress is actually what leads to a lot of these, let's say, it's, it could be either other unhealthy coping mechanisms that, which could lead to even more problems, and that's why, like, as we were growing up, our mom specifically taught us different stress techniques that helped us when we were stressed, so when we were stressed, we could use them, like it's either it's taking deep breaths or it's just doing something that you love away from screens, like I love art and drawing and painting, and you know, running, and they like, let's say, other stuff, but like, we all like different things, and it all helps us, and it all soothes us, and we can't just always focus about hustle, hustle, hustle, and then we'll play later, because that's not the case. Your body doesn't work like that, so you need to make sure that there's time for rest, so then later on, then you can. And feel better, yeah, especially because teens, we are some of the, you know, we're basically so stressed, and we have no clue what to do about it, and nobody teaches us what to do about it, like I know a lot of my friends, like, oh, I'm so stressed, so stressed, like, okay, so what are you doing about it? It's like, I don't know, I guess, you know, I'm just stressed, but I'm gonna, you know, live like that, and schools aren't even teaching us what we can do, and so it's so simple: breathing, just taking a deep breath, you know, like Zain said, like going out into nature, managing your time, even laughter has been shown to improve your brain health, or improve your heart health, and blood, improve like blood flow, and mental and social health, and even, like, I know a lot of parents say, "Oh, we don't need to play anymore, but getting out, especially for kids, teens, and even like when we are interviewing someone at play, they said one of the reasons that maybe adults are more stressed than ever is because we're no longer, you know, playing as much as we should. I remember we interviewed Dr. Willard, and he said that adults are more stressed because they don't make time for a play, and so go outside, climb a tree, go do things outside, put down your phone, especially, please put down your phone, and, or like any other technology that, like, I know our mom is like always like trying to like work on her phone, because she's so much like emails to send out and stuff, like, but we also like to make time for, you know, putting that phone away and going into nature and going into play, and just taking some, like, family time, because that, I think, that really, really can help decrease stress, especially in adults, because they're a lot of times they're always obsessed with, like, working, working, working, and I think us kids can really see it, and I know finals is coming up right now, so a lot of kids, especially in really, really advanced classes are really studying so much, and I know, like, one of my friends that was like, "Oh yeah, last finals, I'm the.. I think he.. it was like this one, like destroyer or something, that you would like spend like so much time getting stressed, and then you then, when you would not become stressed, your body just started like attacking itself, and I think that, like, that's maybe like a lot of kids and teens specifically feel, in especially this stressful time of the year. And then also it's so easy, go get some exercise. I know it's crazy, but you know, go outside, you know, go, you know, get some exercise. Exercise has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, improve your cardiovascular health, even improve your sleep, sleep quality and strengthen your immune system, and you're just, you know, just moving your body. Just get back to the basics. All of this stuff, a lot of the stuff we mentioned is almost, is basically free, and it's simple, easy, takes less than, sometimes even less than five minutes.

Stephanie Mara 26:22

Yeah, it's so funny. I was literally just thinking that of this, like we've gotten so far away of just what is the basics of just being a human being, living in a human body, and what does this human body need? And I was also thinking the same thing, of all of these things are free: getting outside in nature, climbing a tree, putting your feet in grass, taking a fresh breath of air, physically moving your body outside, like no financial means necessary to do any of these things, and they're available to you in any moment. So, I love that you're naming all of these things, that it's like, hey, let's be reminded of our humanity of what do we need just to like thrive as people throughout our life. And I'm so glad you all brought in play, because I completely agree with all of you, of we lose track as we get older, and you know, you're naming of, as you even get older in grades, of like, I have these finals, and I have to study, and you know, but play is so important for integration of information, play is so important for decreasing inflammation, for mental clarity, so yeah, it's really important throughout our entire lives to play, and I love that you listed even the things that you said that you like to play, all free, you know, that it's just like, yeah, you can go play outside, you can go on an adventure, you know, maybe some things, if you're kind of coloring, or things like that, might cost a little bit of money, but you know, that it's just like, yeah, where can we find these opportunities for play, and it's going to be unique to each person as well.

The Holistic Kids 34:05

Also, we just want to make sure everyone understands we're not talking about go-go, we're not saying go play video games. I want you to turn to real play with your real body and real life.

Stephanie Mara 34:14

Yeah, well, I loved this conversation, you know. Usually, I like to wrap up with you're naming all of these things about what you've all started to integrate into your lives and what supports you in thriving in teenage years and older. You know, I always like to offer listeners a baby step, and it could be a baby step for someone who is a teenager, it could be a baby step for parents who are maybe trying to also guide their teenager, kids into some of the things that you have learned. What's maybe a baby step you would offer to a kid or a parent of a kid?

The Holistic Kids 34:59

The first thing you do the next time, if you go to the grocery store and you find ultra processed food and you're wondering what's in it, and you might just then you're deciding to have it. Now look in the back, look at the back of the package, find the food ingredients. If there's any word that you can't really, they don't know what it means it is unfamiliar, go back home, research it, just educate yourself. And if it's bad, like if it has cancer or something, then probably stay away from it, because a lot of you know, blue, you know, red number five, yellow one, number six. All of these, I mean, we always ask you, we always tell people, ask yourself, is this from nature or is this some random chemical that's going to hurt me? And a lot of these chemicals are actually known, known carcinogens that lead to cancer, which is crazy that they decide they just allowed it to put this in food. So educate yourself, because it doesn't matter what age you are. It doesn't matter if you're like, you know, elementary school or a teenager or adult, or you know, your late adults. Just start today and try every single thing. I mean, for us, we started this 10 years ago, but we didn't start all at once. It's not like we're like, oh, you know, no more ultra foods, ultra processed food at all. We took steps one month, we got rid of, we stopped McDonald's. Next, you know, we stopped specific colors. Then we kept going, and we learned more about GMOs. No more GMOs. Then we started to research more to certain products. Now, you know, we're researching natural flavors, and it's a process. In over 10 years, we just kept getting better and better and better. So, I know it seems scary, but as long as you take it one small step at a time, that's how you can achieve anything. Add it's for your health, and it's for your future. Consistency is just so important to like managing like your health, because if you're not going to build the routine, if you're not going to build that habit, where is it going to go? It's just going to disappear in just a couple days, so you really want to build that consistency, and even if it's small, it's important, and I think a big thing like that's also small and easy, especially for your mental health, is just being bored. When you're being bored, I think it's so important, because in this dopamine stimulated world, all of our brains have been constantly, like I said, this over and over. We have been just on the go, and it's just.. it's.. I think it's important to highlight that, you know, I think it's time to take a step back. And I don't think people, a long time ago, like a couple, like decades back, were always stimulated. There always had to be a time for boredom. And now we're seeing this, and a lot of teens aren't finding their purpose. What's caused through all these like amazing inventions is boredom, is these new flow of ideas, but you can't find these ideas either. It's about your future, or it's about a new invention, or a new thing that you want to help the world, and you're not going to figure that out if you're constantly focused on what everyone else is doing, either it's on social media or it's just your work, you have to just take some time to just be bored, and especially I know a lot of teens that are kind of scared of being bored, being scared of like being alone with their own thoughts, if you want to, you know, succeed in life, if you want to level yourself, if you want to improve yourself, then you have to just be bored of, and boredom. Right now, a lot of teens, we're just on our phones, we're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, we're just consuming whatever this company is telling us, this social media is telling us we're not thinking for ourselves. Again, we need to get back to thinking for ourselves. We need to start, you know, breaking off those chains, and if we can do that, I know that every single teen, you know, will finally be able to live how they want to live, and I think another really big thing that we tell teens that they can do to take back control of their own lives is gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, because you know, right now, you know, we're living in this super negative world, our parents yelling at us, you know, some maybe our teacher or our friends, just so much negativity on social media. This thing is happening, that thing is happening, and it's so easy just to get lost in that, but we have to, you know, take it like 10, take a step back, look at our lives, don't stop looking at our lives as less, and start getting rid of that negative self-talk, and start switching our subconscious from negative to positive. What we did, what our mom taught us, and we, what we still do to this day, is, you know, every single day when you wake up, say at least 10 things I am grateful for. If you can't do 10, do three, and if you can't even do three, at least do one. And that's how that we can start, you know, changing, you know, our thoughts and actions, and really shift that internal world to world of positivity.

Stephanie Mara 36:59

Oh, I love all of these things, you know. First, I just hear in these baby steps of consistency, of like anything is just a practice, a lifelong practice that some moments it will be easier to practice than others, and just when we're committed to being consistent and continuing to show up for ourselves the best we can. You know, that's all we can really do sometimes. Just as being like, all right, I'll try again. Also, just the piece of like educating yourself, you know. Sometimes when looking at an ingredient list, it's like, oh yeah, go home if you don't know what it is and look it up, or probably you don't even need to go home. You probably have a phone in your pocket, you know, like being able to kind of look something up and say, okay, actually this is just added vitamin C, that's fine, but like you were naming, like, oh yeah, like red dye coloring might be connected to some health issues, and then you kind of have a choice of like, okay, now knowing that this is something that might affect me in that way, I have a choice of whether that's something I want to take in or not. And then also, just the experience of play and mindfulness and gratitude. I love all of these baby steps that you are giving. They're really important for literally anyone who's listening to this, just to be reminded of how change can be so small and so incremental and lead to such big changes in our life as well, so thank you all, just for being here and sharing your wisdom today. And I'm curious, for anyone who wants to keep in touch with you, your book, your podcast, how can individuals keep in touch with you?

The Holistic Kids 40:50

As we always say, it's really been our pleasure. So I can't thank you enough so much for having us on today. Yeah, so we have of course, a book you can find on Amazon, it is a best seller book. And then you also find in this book on our websites. teenhealthrevolution.com and then the holistic kids podcast, you can find a podcast that's on Spotify, iTunes, really most podcast areas, and then we go by the holistic kids, and then our mom is theholisticmommd.

Stephanie Mara 41:30

Well, I will put all of those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing all of that, and again, just thank you so much for being here. It was really wonderful connecting with you all today.

The Holistic Kids 41:41

Well, it's been amazing to be here as well.So we are so honored. So, thank you.

Stephanie Mara 41:45

Yeah, well, to everyone who is listening, if you have any insights from this episode, email me at support@stephaniemara.com and I hope you all have a satiating and safety-producing rest of the day. Bye!

Keep in touch with The Holistic Kids:

Book: The Teen Health Revolution: https://amzn.to/43xeeyK

Website: https://theholistickidsshow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holistickidsshow/