Speaking of Women's Health
The Speaking of Women's Health Podcast is excited to bring you credible women's health information from host and Executive Director, Dr. Holly L. Thacker. Dr. Thacker will interview guest clinicians discussing relevant women's health topics and the latest news and tips.
Please consider supporting Speaking of Women's Health with a monetary donation to help us continue to provide free women's health content. Thank you!
Speaking of Women's Health
A Halloween Special
Halloween is upon us, and with it comes trick or treating and enjoying time with family and friends. This episode is brimming with ideas to keep the Halloween spirit alive, no matter how old we are!
But Halloween isn't complete without some delicious and healthy treats! This episode seamlessly blends culinary delights with essential advice for a balanced and enjoyable Halloween.
Don't miss the replay of Dr. Holly Thacker’s popular Halloween episode from season one at the end of this episode!
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Welcome to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I'm your guest host for this episode, leigh Klecker. I'm the producer of the Speaking of Women's Health podcast, and I'm really happy to be back in the Sunflower House for this new spooky podcast episode about Halloween. This season we've had the chance to replay a few episodes from season one that we thought were important enough to share again with you, and last season's Halloween episode by Dr Thacker was really fun and well received by our listeners, and so we thought that was another good one to reprise. So after I'm done chatting, you will hear Dr Thacker's Halloween episode from season one. So, as you may have heard, in my previous guest podcast, I've talked about my three children. I have two high schoolers and a middle schooler, and so we're in a bit of that transition stage. They no longer really want to spend all their weekend time with their parents, and they don't really want to go to Fall Fest anymore, or that you know, apple picking, but prefer to really hang out more with their friends. So I'm learning to kind of accept and enjoy this new stage of parenting with them, but it really is so hard for me to let go of those sweet times that I had, you know, during this, you know Halloween, where they want to go trick-or-treating with mom and dad and hold our hands, and or they want to spend the day with us at the pumpkin patch. So we're're not doing so much of that, but there are so many for those of you who you know, have young grandchildren or still young kids, that you know there are so many really fun activities to do on the weekends. I know we here in Northeast Ohio have a great zoo where kids can wear their costumes and do a bit of trick-or-treating. They have activities at the zoo. We have some local farms in the area where they call them family fun fests. But you can. They have pumpkin patches where you can pick your pumpkin corn mazes. I love a good corn maze. I still love to go do that and I try to convince someone to come along with me and my family. And we have a lot of apple picking up here in the Cleveland area as well. So those are some really great activities to do and, you know, and some older kids or just couples really enjoy doing that, especially the apple picking. Because you know, during the different months in September, I know, I think early September is like honey crisp season, that's one of my favorite apples, and then other apples during, and then you can make apple butter. I've tried that one year. It was really good. It just it took me a really long time. It was a whole day thing of softening the apples and churning the apples. But you know, fresh apples make really great recipes and we actually on speakingofwomenshealthcom have some really good apple recipes. So even if you just go to our website and type in apple recipes in the search, it'll pop up with some wonderful, delicious and healthy recipes that you can make with fresh apples if you decide to go apple picking. So you know.
Speaker 1:Costumes are also a big thing around the holiday. You know Halloween season I know again when they were little it was a bit different right. We'd go to our local store online and look for a cute costume or make something. That's something I really like to do, because Halloween costumes are really expensive. So I'll check out some you know pictures online or even just browse at some of these you know pop-up stores that they have these Halloween pop-up costume stores and see if we can try and get the same look or pull together, you know the same kind of look with things that we already have here at home. Sometimes the kids go for it, you know, sometimes kind of look with things that we already have here at home. Sometimes the kids go for it, you know, sometimes they really want that exact costume they found at the store or online.
Speaker 1:And I know, you know, costumes aren't just for kids. You know, my husband and I we usually go to a friend's Halloween party every year and she makes costumes required. Last year it was 80s themed, which was really fun, and she always does a costume contest and the winners last year they were it was a group of people who dressed up as Robert Palmer and the women with the black dresses and the red lipstick from the Addicted to Love music video. So creative. I love a good group costume. That actually makes me think of a long time ago, many years ago, when my husband was just still my boyfriend at the time and his sister was in town visiting us and we had to pull together a quick group costume for our friend's Halloween party and we did Three's Company. So if you remember that show, I was Janet and wore this terrible wig that I had to cut up. You know, got very creative there. My husband was Jack Tripper and my sister-in-law was Chrissy. That is still my favorite costume. I actually would love to redo that one again with the group.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, costumes, you know, can be, you know, really, really fun. And you know, again, it's not just for those youngsters out there, it's for, you know, all of us adults. So, as I mentioned, you know, trying to find time, you know, with the older kids in your family, even you know, your adult children, your adult grandkids or your teenagers, you know. So, instead of, you know, going to those pumpkin patches, we actually started a little bit of a new tradition the last year or so is we tried to at least get them together one evening and watch a Halloween movie together. So we're going towards more of a little bit more of our scary Halloween movies now, those old school Halloweens and Friday the 13th, those are great. The last couple years we've gone and watched through all of those and you know I can't get enough of family time, especially since in our lives, you know, we're all going in so many directions right now. So if I can just get two hours from my family on a Sunday evening and we watch a movie, I'm happy, I'm good.
Speaker 1:So actually, shining is on my list this Halloween, as I haven't seen that one in forever, and if you have a favorite Halloween movie, we'd love to hear what it is. So if you're on social media or you know, follow Speaking of Women's Health on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or YouTube Rumble, we're all over. Please share your favorite Halloween movies in the comments. We'd love to hear what you've been watching and what you're watching tonight on Halloween. It's great to get suggestions from others. Sometimes I forget about some of those really good scary movies and you got to have treats right With these Halloween movies. You got to make something, especially if you're trying to get teenagers to join you. So we always like to find a good treat or recipe and have that ready to go for the movie.
Speaker 1:One of our favorites and this is on speakingofwomenshealthcom is blonde brownies. So this is like a good go-to holiday bar cookie for any holiday, because you can just use those holiday themed M&M candies. You know, I know, at Halloween now I actually just bought them the other day. They're green, purple orange, so they're really fun and just can make this recipe a really good holiday themed. So I'll share this recipe with you. It's actually from our the late Holly Clegg and it's featured in her cookbook Trim and Terrific. Kitchen 101, secrets to Cooking Confidence Great cookbook, really really good recipes in there and they're all usually pretty easy, quick, and she offers a lot of different suggestions for substituting the ingredients to make it as healthy as possible. So you can find this recipe again speakingtowomenshealthcom and just search blonde brownies in our search bar at the top right corner blonde brownies in our search bar at the top right corner.
Speaker 1:But the recipe calls for half a cup of butter melted, one two-third cups of light brown sugar, two eggs, one tablespoon of vanilla extract, two cups of all-purpose flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, a fourth a teaspoon of baking soda, one-fourth cup skim milk or whichever type of milk you prefer, one fourth cup skim milk or whichever type of milk you prefer I use skim and try to, you know, limit the calories as much as possible and then one cup of those fun Halloween colored chocolate M&M candies. So you preheat the oven to 350. You know, I coat my 13 by 9 inch baking pan with a nonstick cooking spray and then in a large bowl you combine the butter, the brown sugar and you add each egg one at a time. You beat that well, add the vanilla and then combine the flour, the baking powder, baking soda, stir in that sugar mixture and then add the milk, stir in the candies, put it in that pan that you've put your cooking spray nonstick cooking spray on and you bake it for 18 to 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:You know, I like to do the toothpick test and insert that in the center and if it comes out pretty clean, I know they're good to go and I can take them out of the oven. And it does make about 48 squares. But you know it depends how you cut them. I cut mine a little bit bigger because if I do 48, they're usually little. My boys say why are these so small? So I'm like you can take two, you don't need to, and really it's 91 calories per serving. So it's, you know you don't feel that guilt if you want to have a few of those while you're watching your scary movies. And this is what I love. You don't need to use the mixer for this recipe as you can just stir everything easily in the bowl. And I love that because I do like my mixer, but they're big and I don't like to clean it, so I like that easy. Easy tip from our late friend Holly Clegg. Easy tip from our late friend Holly Clegg.
Speaker 1:And again, you could find this recipe on our website, speakingofwomenshealthcom, and just search blonde brownies in the field at the top of the website.
Speaker 1:And again, if you have any great fall or Halloween recipes that you want to share, again, share it with us on our social media.
Speaker 1:We love to hear from you, we love to get any suggestions and if it's a really good recipe and you've got either a video or picture with it, maybe we'd even like to feature it on the site.
Speaker 1:So thank you for listening to me. You know talk to you about Halloween and how we enjoy Halloween at our house. I know I'm going to be getting ready to finalize my decorating in my yard and get that fog smoker out and set up some pretend you know cemetery decorations in our front yard, and I'm looking forward to seeing all the young kids in our neighborhood and their cute costumes. And so we hope you have a wonderful Halloween in your house. And up next you're going to hear Dr Thacker's podcast episode from season one called Tips for a Fun and Safe Halloween, and we hope you enjoy this spooky Halloween podcast, as Dr Thacker shares and discusses tips for kids and adults and how to have a fun, healthy and safe Halloween, and be sure to listen to the entire episode, as she shares the perfect fall recipes even more great recipes in the second half of the episode. So thanks for listening and happy Halloween.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I am your host, dr Holly Thacker, and I'm glad to be back in the Sunflower House house, and today's episode is going to focus on Halloween, one of our favorite fall events, and we're going to just talk about healthy treats. It's also football season. I certainly was a football mother for a long time. All three of my sons played high school football, two all the way through to varsity and went on to play college football like their father, and so the fall kind of was a scary time for me, being concerned about injuries and concussions. But it's an exciting time of the year that crisp feel of air outside, the leaves are changing, we're moving into the holiday season and it's a good time to reflect on healthy eating, which is so important at speaking of women's health. Now moving in to talking about healthy foods, since it is the fall and many people do enjoy the football season tailgating. I certainly enjoyed going to the Friday night lights football games and getting a big chrysanthemum and mums to wear with the little gold football, going to parents night, including all the way up through college. So it was a lot of fun and there was a lot of tailgating. And, on speaking of women's health, we have some like fabulous fun recipes for appetizers, game day snacks. I'm just going to go over a couple of my favorites and some of these are also good for children and we're going to talk about children and treats and being safe for trick-or-treat and what Halloween means and how to help prepare your children or grandchildren for this fun kids holiday. So some of the appetizers that we have on the website include a really delicious endive mango fig appetizer. There's a fun cream cheese vegetable dip. Fun zucchini boats I think I posted on social media pictures of the zucchini boats that I've made from following the recipe. A great guacamole dip I mean avocado is so healthy heart, healthy fats dip I mean avocado is so healthy heart, healthy fats, magnesium. I was just feeding my grandson Lincoln, little tiny slivers of avocado. In fact I gave him some spinach. It was the first time he had ever had spinach.
Speaker 2:There's a great recipe from our retired nurse practitioner Many of you may know her, mary Clarkin. She's provided several recipes, including the cheese ball one and my favorite, the artichoke dip. Oh, it is delicious. She used to bring it in to our Center for Specialized Women's Health on special events. There's a great bruschetta with tomato and basil. It's kind of a summer one but can be one for the fall and it's just a top-notch refreshing pickup. And that particular recipe is from Holly Clegg, the late great Holly Clegg. She wrote several cookbooks with an eye towards health and she died a few years ago tragically. But so many of her recipes are out there, they're on our website, they're on her family's continued, her social media, and she wrote several great books, including Trim and Terrific Gulf Coast Favorites great books, including trim and terrific Gulf coast favorites.
Speaker 2:There's a sweet potato hummus appetizer uh, tabula, uh appetizer. Uh. One of my favorites is a super salsa one. It has lots of fresh ingredients. Um, it's simple, it's super snazzy and you can make homemade tortilla chips, which one of our graduate fellows, dr Lauren Weber, provided, and you can sprinkle the tortilla chips with your favorite seasonings. The super salsa recipe comes from Holly Clegg's trim and terrific book that she cutely titled Too Hot in the Kitchen Secrets to Sizzle at Any Age. There's a mango chutney spread which is surprisingly simple, with just six ingredients and you can have this very mild, sweet, but spicy and salty. It kind of is like over your whole palate and opposite flavors can attract and it tantalizes every taste bud with every bite, and you can use crackers to serve it from. That's also from her. Too hot in the kitchen secrets to sizzle at any age.
Speaker 2:Now one of my favorite recipes is the eight layer Greek dip, and this is a go to makeead recipe when you want an impressive knockout appetizer. It includes hummus. I kind of like the roasted red pepper hummus, but I also like the garlic hummus and feta cheese and specific Kalamata olives and they all come together to make a really exotic taste for your next gathering. So maybe you're tailgating and watching football games, maybe you're not, maybe you're just getting together for family events or just wanted to make something fun for yourself. So the dip is great. It's low in calories, high in fiber and nutrients. So move over Mexican seven layer dip. We have an eight layer Greek dip recipe on speakingofwomenshealthcom and it's certainly Mediterranean inspired. It might be your new party favorite and you can serve this also with pita chips. So you are listening to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I am your host, dr Holly Thacker, and now we're going to move into Halloween, since it's October of 2023.
Speaker 2:This is really an important event for children because it can help teach them to manage their reactions to strong emotions. It can teach them to be more social, going out with their friends to trick or treat. It also does also emphasize manners having some manners, trick or treat and of course there's lots of opportunities for a good sense of humor as well as individuality and creativity. I am not particularly a creative person, that is for sure, but I remember starting in July with my children to plan for what costumes that they would be, to plan for what costumes that they would be, and my mother was very creative and was an excellent seamstress and could make costumes and outfits and dresses. I remember for one of the centennial celebrations in our New England town she was able to make costumes that were from that time period. So that really is not my forte, but I remember one year making Indian costumes for everyone. That was kind of fun and getting the children involved in doing that also helped them plan ahead and add their own creative touches.
Speaker 2:Now, certainly children like getting all the treats and as adults it's important for us to help moderate and not use treats as any thing for definite reward, but something just to learn moderation. It's also very important to help children understand the difference between fears and facts and just the importance that fantasy life plays in the creation of memories and experience and managing emotions. Now I would usually try to take part of the day off from work, at least to make it to their Halloween parades, or to be home in time to make sure they had a really good dinner, because before you go out trick-or-treating with them, when there's all those treats, you want to make sure that they've had some nutrient-rich dinner. In general, the younger the child, the more they like to snack. So if they're just primarily snackers and they're not really grown up enough to sit down for a regular meal, you really want to make sure that your snacks are nutritious. You really want to make sure that your snacks are nutritious.
Speaker 2:Young children love dips and hummus is so healthy. You can use some plain or vanilla flavored yogurt to dip pieces of fruit in. Ranch. Dip is always a favorite with children and sometimes, to get children to eat certain meats and vegetables, a little tiny bit of ketchup without extra added sugar can certainly be an enticement, and allowing the child to participate in cooking also helps. Now Holly Clegg's recipe Eating Well to Fight Arthritis has a really good snack mix. That's simple and fantastic. It mixes savory and sweet sprinkles, a couple of colorful M&Ms to make it a little more festive and can be put in little tiny sandwich bags. So please be sure, if you haven't already bookmarked our fabulous website speakingofwomenshealthcom, to take a look at some of these recipes.
Speaker 2:So, getting back to Halloween, certainly a lot of the sights, the goblins, the skeletons, scary scenes can be disturbing, especially to younger children. So I think, gradually introducing them, talking to them, maybe showing them some pictures, and then emphasizing things that are age appropriate, letting them be able to do pretend play and wear costumes All three of my children loved wearing costumes, even when it wasn't Halloween. I remember going out at restaurants and my oldest son, stetson, would be dressed as Batman or Superman you know one of his favorite characters and I would have some busybodies come up to me to tell me that it wasn't Halloween, which of course I knew, but you know if he's appropriately dressed, but he enjoys the fantasy play. My youngest son, grayson, dressed up as Han Solo and wanted a picture of himself. And then at five, and he had a picture of his older brother, stetson, at age five, and he'd show me the two pictures and he'd say see, I am more handsome than Stetson. And then Emerson, my middle son, oh, my goodness, he loved those Power Rangers. He'd wake us up in the middle of the night to tie his costume around his neck. So my granddaughter Artemis, oh, she loves dressing up, whether it's a princess or a superhero, she likes all the accoutrements, and I think that fantasy play is very important for their memory, for their intellectual development, for them feeling empowered, for them feeling strong.
Speaker 2:Especially, you know they realize that they are quite vulnerable many times as children although not all children do. And certainly you want to make sure that, even though Halloween is very social and people are out in mass, walking from home to home, that there still needs to be an awareness of stranger danger. There still needs to be an awareness of stranger danger and there always needs to be safety on the roads when crossing the street. Costumes should not obstruct vision. There should always be adult supervision. I always tended to bring push cars or wagons or things so that the child could rest and still have a place to put their things. Reflective clothing is also important and knowing the neighborhoods that are best for children to go out trick-or-treating.
Speaker 2:I think that history is important and understanding why customs evolve and certainly they can be different from locale to locale and from family to family. My family always just enjoyed autumn, enjoyed the change of the season, the harvest, you know, the colorful pumpkins and gourds. But the origination of Halloween comes from an ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain, and it celebrated the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and during the time of Samhain, the ancient pagans took stock of all the supplies and started to prepare for winter. The ancient Celts from Britain and Ireland observed the start of the new year actually on November 1st, all Souls Day or All Saints Day, which was actually my mother's birthday, and it was the classical marking of the absolute end of summer and harvest time. And so people came to believe that on October 31st the worlds of the living and dead overlapped before the start of the new year. So October 31st became All Hallows Eve, when the ghost of the dead could return to destroy that harvest that was stored for winter. So people would start bonfires to ward off those evil spirits, and so the word Halloween apparently is just a shortening of all Hallow's Eve, also known as simply Halloween and trick-or-treat time, and that became part of history thanks to that Celtic tradition. And so children in the UK would go door to door on All Hallows' Eve and ask for food in exchange for the promise of praying for the giver's dead relatives on All Saints' Day the next day. So this practice was known as going assouling, and that might be the start of it. The tradition actually didn't make its way to America right away. Trick-or-treating here appeared to have started, with children trading songs for treats here appeared to have started with children trading songs for treats in the 1910s, according to old newspaper text. But Halloween really did take off after World War II when children's magazines featured it and it entered more pop culture.
Speaker 2:Many people will take pumpkins and make jack-o'-lanterns. In fact Artemis told me I need to have a happy jack-o'-lantern and a scary jack-o'-lantern and a sad jack-o'-lantern, and so it's kind of nice for children to be able to associate emotions with facial expressions. So people apparently believe that carving scary faces onto turnips would frighten away the evil spirits. And then the tradition turned to pumpkins in America because pumpkins were much more plentiful and generally easier to carve. But be careful carving. We've had more than one emergency room visit for lacerations with carving pumpkins. So be careful, because they still can be difficult to carve. And it amazes me so many people that are so talented and come up with very creative designs and come up with very creative designs. So there's a lot of legends that surround jack-o'-lanterns. In Irish folklore, a farmer named Jack used a cross to trap the devil and one story went along the lines that Jack tricked the devil into climbing an apple tree and once he was up there, jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved across into the bark so the devil couldn't get there. So it was kind of like the jack-o'-lantern was a night watchman and this came about around the mid-17th century. But speaking of children and their imagination, please be sure to check out one of our supporters at Speaking of Women's Health Clever Crazes for Kids, clevercrazescom. They have all sorts of great engaging educational games where school children can actually win prizes such as sneakers.
Speaker 2:And getting back to Halloween and treats, one of the things that I would do my husband really didn't like the idea because he just thought you should get the best candy to give out as treats, but I also would include juice boxes or water bottles, because a lot of the kids would be very thirsty. Running from home to home to say trick or treat in the little two-hour time frame. I also one year it was such a beautiful weather that we actually ran out of treats despite having so many. And I can think part of that is because my husband, tom, just is so generous that he'll just say, no, put your whole hand in. So if every kid comes in and takes a huge handful, you can run out. And so we would have little bags of change. And it was very interesting because you would give the children choices Would you like water? Would you like a juice box? Would you like money or, you know, a chocolate treat or maybe a bag of pretzels in the shape of jack-o'-lanterns. And it's very interesting to see how children would look and see what they have or make trades. So it really can be educational.
Speaker 2:But of course you want to go through your children's treats, make sure that they're sealed and they're appropriate and that you take into account any potential allergies. And we're very aware of that because Artemis has a cashew allergy and so she's undergoing some desensitization for that, because nut allergies or any food allergies actually can be quite life-threatening with anaphylaxis. So you always want to monitor your children's intake. Now other information we have on speaking on women's health, besides the snacks and the treats, we do have some child development information. Most of what we feature, of course, is on midlife women's health, but women are the center of their family and their communities, so we do include information on children's health and also men's health.
Speaker 2:So, getting back to children or future, how to be a positive role model for your children, so we want good physical health and mental health and there's definitely a direct connection between one's physical health and their sense of well-being and self-worth. And so by becoming a good role model for your daughter or son or granddaughter or grandson or nurse or niece or nephew or another community member, you can certainly help a younger person live a healthier and potentially longer life. So a mother's particular approach to her attitude and her body image and health habits can be indicators of her children's health and their satisfaction. Certainly, girls tend to look to their mothers for advice, like boys might look to their mother about how to interact with someone from the opposite sex and how to treat a woman. The old adage which I've repeated to my sons many times look how a son treats his mother and you'll learn how he treats his future wife and both daughters and sons watch how we treat ourselves, how we talk about our bodies and how we practice healthful habits from eating and shopping and sleeping and exercising.
Speaker 2:So it's important, I think, to have a very good working relationship with a physician or an advanced practice clinician with whom you're comfortable with. I think it's always good to come organized for your own doctor appointments as well as your child's or grandchild's appointment and come organized, write down questions, bring in all prescriptions and supplements. If there's any devices that you use, like a blood pressure cuff or any other forms of monitoring, your journal of your blood pressures or your blood sugar, that's important. Refer to reliable sources of health information like speakingonwomenshealthcom. Know all your numbers weight, bmi and blood pressure and cholesterol. Make connections between your health exam and lifestyle and pick some changes that you can stick to and try to encourage your entire family to be healthy and exercise regularly and get periodic checkups.
Speaker 2:It's important to know your child's world. A lot of times, parents are very, very busy working, being pulled in many directions, so it is challenging but very important to foster open and honest discussions that are age appropriate about health. Discussions that are age appropriate about health, sense of well-being, self-esteem, beauty. So much social media really exposes, especially young girls and women, with images that really might not align with our own personal values, and certainly pop culture can affect both sexes and the perception of their morals and values. So it's very important to be proactive as parents or leaders or grandparents, and it is important to celebrate growing up and helping your child make some healthy and safe choices. And helping your child make some healthy and safe choices as they get older and become teenagers. It's very important to look into their peer group, what social media they're using.
Speaker 2:It's, I think, helpful to invite their friends over and provide a safe place to hang out. Certainly that's what my husband and I did. Our house was always open. We were the ones to take them and their friends out to eat or for activities, and sometimes, you know it would be a little bit tiring. We think, well, maybe we would just like to go out to dinner, but it was best and it worked out very well for us that we would just take them and their friends or later, them and their girlfriends. Um, you do want to have open conversations about the books that they're reading, what shows or movies they're watching and what's going on with school, and it's very important to kind of nip any unrealistic body images or body types and nip that in the bud and trying to spend time is very important, even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes a day. We always had a period at the end of work in school where each child would get 10 minutes just alone with a parent and that doesn't seem like very much time. But when you have three children or more, four or five, that can really definitely add up. But it's very important for them to have a certain amount of undivided attention and put that cell phone away. Look at your work emails and other intrusions later and other intrusions later.
Speaker 2:And in terms of healthy eating, I think pre-planning, shopping ahead, trying to avoid eating fast foods or eating out too much, looking for the superfoods, the nutrient-dense foods I think that's one of our all-time favorite podcasts is on superfoods. It's very important to not put a growing child on a restrictive diet and parents should not project their own anxiety and angst that they may have with their body and eating patterns on their child. Any child who is on any kind of a weight loss program it has to be supervised by a physician and be for medical reasons. So I think one of the most important things to reduce childhood obesity is physical activity. I mean, when I was a child, I ran around with my siblings all day long. My parents did not know where I was. We were riding bikes running around and they always had to call us to come in for dinner because we were too busy playing. Children are much more supervised. Play dates sometimes are arranged, or many times the whole lure of electronics take a child's attention and the physical activity is very, very, very important.
Speaker 2:I was just visiting my middle son, emerson, who's building a brand new home, and he's so excited with his son Lincoln, who's so cute. He's just learning how to stand and crawl. He's not walking yet. His mother posted this cute picture of him in a shirt that said boo. She put, give this child a pumpkin latte. Of course she was joking, but she was just saying how he was just quintessential autumn. She was just saying how he was just quintessential autumn, and so Emerson was proudly showing us around the home, which you know had some drywall up and was still being, you know, worked on, and hopefully they'll be in sometime after Halloween and in time for Thanksgiving, which is actually Lincoln's first birthday. It's so cute. They picked the name Lincoln because it was President Lincoln that gave the official proclamation for Thanksgiving and we'll have some great podcasts on Thanksgiving and the upcoming winter holidays, from Hanukkah to Rosh Hashanah and to, of course, christmas and New Year's, because so many of these holidays are linked with food and family.
Speaker 2:But anyway, when we were looking at Emerson's new home, he was taking us to the basement and he was talking about how, oh, you know, if we finish it, we'll make this one room and this another room, and you know this for storage. And I said to him you know, while finish it, we'll make this one room and this another room, and you know this for storage. And I said to him you know, while your children are young, just leave it unfinished so they can ride their little tricycle around, they can throw balls, they can. You can put a swing set because in bad weather it's really nice for kids to be able to get their energy out, and sometimes that's harder to do as we're now getting closer to that colder weather. So, in terms of healthy eating habits for kids, having a wide variety of healthy foods available encourage your child to eat slowly, chew completely, and a child can detect hunger and fullness better when eating slowly.
Speaker 2:We all should take our time eating and we should eat and swallow and drink enough fluids and not try to eat and talk or do other activities at the same time. It's important not always possible to try to eat meals together as a family and try to make mealtimes pleasant not any type of a power struggle, because if mealtimes are unpleasant, children may try to eat faster and leave the table as soon as possible. One of the things that we run into with Artemis is as a toddler, of course, she's not going to eat nearly as much as we adults do, and she likes to snack, and so her dinners are many times are very, very small and she's anxious to get on to the next fun activity many times that she wants us to be involved in. So she'll always ask us are you done yet? Are you done yet? Because of course, she wants us to stop eating so that we can go play. And actually that's not a bad idea for a lot of adults because as we get older, the gut hormones from the intestines that feed to our brain to link satiety take a lot longer, and so many cultures, like in Japan, they teach their adults to only eat until they're about 80% full, and that's a very important tactic, in addition to having smaller plates is only eat until you think you're about 80% full and then later, in 20 or 30 minutes, if you're still hungry, then go back. Then go back. But I think to not eat everything that you like to your full, especially as an adult, is very important. And you'll see children. They'll eat a little bit and you've just put out this food and you want them to finish their food. But it's better not to tell them to finish their food. Put it up, let them eat it later.
Speaker 2:As an adult, whenever you go out, I think you should always bring a doggy bag, even if you don't have a doggy. But for the next meal or for your lunch, try to only eat in designated areas like the kitchen or the dining room. It's not good to eat in front of the television because then there's more mindless eating. About the only time I'll give Artemis something to eat when one of her favorite superhero, like Spider-Man shows, is on is when I'm trying to get her to eat an iron chewy, because she's still not the best at eating iron rich cereals or meats, although she's getting better. And the only time I can slip in the not tootoo-tasty iron chewy is when she's distracted. But if it's not medicine or something that your child needs to ingest that you know is not their favorite. It's really not a good time to do that.
Speaker 2:And it's good to plan ahead for snacks and they can be part of a nutritious diet without spoiling the child's mealtime appetites. But it is important to focus on them being nutritious and your child can still have occasional treats. You know, I know of one really lovely dear nurse who told me how she was, as a child, forbidden from ever having pizza or any kind of treats and once she left her home and was grown for college, then it went wild. So certainly parents have to set limits, but it is important not to set up negative patterns. Now I remember my husband laughing. He's like oh yeah, remember when Stetson would take the sugar packets from the restaurant tables and hide under the table to eat the sugar. And so I mean children who are very small do tend to like simple sugars and things that are easily digestible. But don't, don't withhold food as a punishment, because this might lead the child to naturally worry they're not going to get enough food and then they may try to eat when they have any chance, even when they're not hungry. And it's best not to use sweets as a reward, because then children are going to think they're intrinsically better or more valuable. I think it's important to put emphasis on the foods that are really healthy, like when I was giving Lincoln little bits of spinach, I'm like, oh yes, this is going to make you so strong. Look at those muscle cuts. And of course he's just smiling and happy and glad to be able to pick up something and get it into his mouth.
Speaker 2:So once your kid goes to school, your child goes to school you really do need to pay attention to the school lunch program. I remember being mortified when I found out that my elementary students, children and their friends could take their money and instead of buying a lunch they could just buy candy, and if, as long as they had enough money to buy what they wanted to. In fact, I got involved in the nutrition committee and it wasn't that I wanted them not to have the ability to be able to occasionally purchase treats, but not without their parents' knowledge that they weren't getting their milk and their lunch. And so I remember my one son was crying. He was like so upset. He said, mom, the kids say it's because of you that they're taking away all the treats. And we also worked really hard to get a recess before lunch because so many of the kids were throwing away their good food because they were so desperate to get outside away their good food because they were so desperate to get outside. So, just like you should not use food as a reward, I don't think you should punish children by not letting them get their exercise, because when they get their exercise, they're so much more likely to behave better, and when your child is outside the home, you do have to pay more attention to whether they're balanced.
Speaker 2:Now, as we're wrapping up this special edition of the Halloween Speaking of Women's Health podcast, we will talk about potentially some somewhat gory topics. I want to cover dental trauma with a pediatric dentist, because anytime any of us even people in the medical field with experience are faced with any kind of trauma or blood or gore or an acute emergency, it's very important to have it drilled into how you're going to respond in a safe and effective manner. I think most people know, of course, how to call 911, but if it's not a true 911 emergency, obviously you should not be calling 911. There are some things that look like an emergency, that look really scary, like the so-called Halloween eye or subconjunctival hemorrhage, where you'll bust a little blood vessel in the eye and all the white of the eye becomes red. That can be very frightening and most of the time it's completely benign. A little blood vessel bursts like from a cough or a sneeze. Occasionally it can mean high blood pressure, and any adult should have their blood pressure checked at least once a year and probably more frequently after age 50 or if it's ever been elevated. We're going to have future podcasts on cardiovascular assessments and stroke, because those are the things that really kill most Americans now.
Speaker 2:I really want to thank you for tuning in to this podcast from appetizers to the history of Halloween to healthy eating for children and I hope you'll look forward to some of our future holiday podcasts as well as our general content.
Speaker 2:We have so much information. If you don't follow us on Rumble and you like to see the video content of our podcast, which includes some guests, you can go on speakingofwomenshealthcom and just hit the follow or subscribe button. If you don't already follow our podcast, they're free and you can just click anywhere that you follow any podcast, whether that's Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Google has podcasts Overcast, amazon Music I think most people use Amazon CastBox, podcast, addict and Pocket Cast, as well as iHeart Radio, and I'd really like to give a shout out to our executive producer, lee Klecker, who's also going to be a guest podcaster on some of our health enhancing but kind of non-medical content, because we really endeavor to help you be strong and be healthy and be in charge. I am your host and you have been listening to our Speaking of Women's Health podcast and I hope you join me again back in the sunflower house.
