Supplements Are for Kids, Too

< Full Episode

Transcript: Supplements Are for Kids, Too

Season 9, Episode 3  | September 17, 2024

[MUSIC]

Welcome to Life Time Talks, the podcast aimed at helping you achieve your health, fitness, and life goals. I’m Jamie Martin, editor in chief of Experience Life, Life Time’s whole life health and wellness magazine.

And I’m David Freeman, senior director of Alpha, one of Life Time’s signature group training programs. We’re all in different places on our health and fitness journeys, but no matter what we’re working toward, there are some essential things we can do to keep moving in the direction of a healthy and purpose-driven life.

In each episode, we break down various elements of healthy living, including fitness and nutrition, mindset and community, and health issues. We also share real, inspiring stories of transformation.

And we talk to experts from Life Time and beyond who will share their insights and knowledge so you have the tools and information you need to take charge of your next steps.

Before we get into this episode, a quick reminder that Life Time Talks is available in the complimentary Life Time app, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you’re hearing, we’d love it if you’d subscribe to Life Time Talks and leave a review. It’s the best way to help us reach even more listeners with this healthy living information.

And with that, let’s get into the show. Here we go.

[MUSIC]

Hey everyone, welcome back to Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin.

And I’m David Freeman.

And in this episode, we are talking about supplementation for kids. We know that many adults use supplementation to complement their daily diets, what they’re doing, but we don’t hear about it as often for kids. And we know that our kids are growing. We also know that the quality of our food has changed over recent years. So, we may need to supplement with different vitamins, minerals, etc., to get what we need. And that’s not just for us adults, but kids too. So, we’re excited to have one of our favorite guests back with us here on Life Time Talks. I’m gonna hand it over to David to intro who’s with us today.

Yeah, I go ahead and say our gold medal guest just because of the frequent amount of times that she’s been on and just providing us with a plethora of information each and every time. So I wanna call it our golden guest, miss Samantha McKinney is an RD, CPT, and is national program manager for nutrition, metabolism and weight loss at Life Time. She’s been with Life Time for over 13 years in multiple roles and is currently on the team that leads nutrition programs and supplements for Life Time members, helping them optimize their metabolism and results from the inside out. Welcome back, Sam.

Thank you for such a kind intro as always, you two. It’s always flattering. It’s a good little start to my day to hear that, but I appreciate being on here for sure.

Well, as listeners who’ve been here before have heard, we have kind of a little competition between you and Paul Kriegler and Anika Christ about who’s the most frequent guest. So now we have to start that, you know, keeping track of it again with this new season.

Since the three of us work on the same team, I’m just gonna say we’re the gold medal team then.

Ooh, look at you.

There we go.

I love it, I love it.

Well, Sam, we know, like I said in the intro, that there’s a lot happening. Kids are in this prime phase of development right now. Childhood and adolescence is one of the most important periods of development for them. And while we might not as parents be thinking about supplementation for them, getting them with the right nutrient status is really important for optimal growth. So I want to kick this episode off with talking about the role that nutrient status plays in development. Can you start us there?

Yeah, I love that you even opened it up that way, just because oftentimes in society and kind of like what I hear from people is that there’s almost this mindset of like, we hear all the time, kids are resilient or like, kids are young or they’ll grow out of it or whatever it might be in it almost kind of downplays sometimes the importance of really being dialed in with nutrition. I’m not talking about being maniacal or strict, but sometimes I feel like there’s this societal attitude that, the kids will be fine, right? It’s like when we get older, that’s when we got to start being careful. But kind of what you alluded to, you know, like there are these huge spurts in growth and development from birth all the way up through adolescence, right? And obviously there’s other times in life where it becomes really important too. But I think what a lot of people forget is that that is really nutrient intensive process, not just from a calorie macronutrient standpoint, which is important protein, fat, carbohydrate, but from a micronutrient standpoint, right? The vitamins and minerals and different nutrients there. And if you’re below optimal in certain nutrients during these critical periods of growth and development, there’s no going back. You can have lifelong impact from that. And I don’t say that to scare people because, there are like the extreme cases where the lifelong impact is really medically altering, right? But what I see more often is less that it’s like medically altering, but what ends up happening is that kids then start developing maybe chronic conditions that we’re starting to normalize, right? As a society a little bit and different things that kids are struggling with that we just think are like part of childhood and optimally from a health standpoint, they’re not. But these growth periods, I mean, I think from like preschool to six, you know, kids on average are gaining like four pounds a year. This is average, right? Kind of growing two to three inches every year. And then from, you know, six through adolescence, it’s somewhere between like seven and eight pounds. And you have to think about this. Like, it’s not just weight, the way adults think about weight. This is bone mass. This is organ growth. This is even changes to red blood cells and how your body delivers oxygen, you know, from your lungs to your cells. And so there’s all these like really metabolically intensive processes that are happening uniquely in childhood. So you’ve got to be dialed in and optimizing their growth and their development from that standpoint.

Yes, Sam. So, I mean, we live in a society that is all about convenience. And as adults, you just kind of mentioned as far as we’re aware of certain things that we need to be aware of for ourselves and how we need to implement things for ourselves. But when it comes to our kids, we look at these nutrient needs. Is it the same needs as us as adults? You just kind of said as we’re growing, there’s going to be this, this evolution of certain things. So we both exist in the same environment. So does it, does it mean that the increase of those nutrient needs at the film, national level is more higher than it would be for an adult?

Good question. I mean, the nutrient needs are, they’re different absolute amounts, right? That are needed, like the actual amounts. But whenever we think about like the relative amounts of these nutrients compared to what kids are eating, it ends up being really high. I mean, even if you start thinking about it from this standpoint of like, people are so skeptical about supplementation, but you have to look at the reality is like as a population, there’s like different definitions of healthy eating and whether or not your kids are getting what they need to be. Like there are some people that, know, they, their biggest thing is their kids might be eating fast food all the time, but maybe they’re like, yeah, but I make sure it’s low sugar. And they’re not really kind of thinking about the fact that, hey, they might be missing micronutrients, even if it’s low sugar. Or there are people whose kids are eating kind of clean, processed foods all the time. They’re snacks, but hey, I’m getting them from XYZ organic store, so it’s OK. And you’re not thinking about the nutrient needs that are missing. Or there’s people that are like, hey, I’m not really worried so much about balance, but my kids are eating all whole nutrient-dense foods. And that’s yet another definition of it. But at end of the day, we know from a societal standpoint is like 60% of kids aren’t getting enough fruits and vegetables, right? 90% of kids, I think the actual stat is 92% or 93% aren’t getting enough vegetables, right? Like if you just look at vegetables alone, there’s this almost epidemic of like picky and selective eating, right? Kids are, I’m always hearing parents telling me about struggling to get their kids to eat enough animal proteins, right? And meat, and that’s really problematic because there’s such a great source of vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 and zinc. And those are really rate limiting important nutrients needed during these growth spurts. know, adolescents, even if you look at young adolescents, you accumulate almost 50% of your bone mass during adolescence in a really short period of time. So if you think about how that might impact down the road, things that kids aren’t thinking about at all right now, not just athletic performance, but you know, osteopenia and bone health as you get older and all that type of stuff. A lot of it does kind of tie back to childhood and these nutrients are just so incredibly crucial, you know, like the slight deficiencies in them, although this is super complex, like our kids need more nutrients now more than ever, right? You think of how much stress they’re under. They’re not, most kids right now are not running around outside their entire childhood, being active, you know, eating from their backyards. For most people, we’re eating from grocery stores, lots of packaged foods. Kids are more sedentary during the day. Sometimes then it lends to them being more stressed out and over-committed from sports and activities and different things at night. So it’s this whole cluster of things that we’re like, OK, we’ve got to dial in and just let’s do the very best we can for our kids during this period of time where it’s actually our responsibility as adults.

Yeah, and one thing I’m hearing in that, Sam, is it goes back to a lot of the things we talked about at Life Time about being proactive versus reactive. you know, I was just thinking about, you hear so much about how adults in their 30s start losing muscle mass, you know, but if we’re setting ourselves up earlier on, if we as parents and any caregivers for children of any at any age can start to proactively prepare them for these next phases of life, it feels like there’s an opportunity there to really dial in and prepare them for those phases in life where we know changes start to naturally occur because of whatever factors there are. So I love this idea of how do we start to think of this as proactively versus waiting till later on and then letting them solve the problem. How can we take an active role in their nutrition?

And as they get older, right, they get more opinionated and then they’re around more friends that have decisions and you, as they grow every year, it’s like, yes, you’re kind of dictating, hopefully their nutrition or at least setting the right foundation and example. But with every year, you do have less and less control because they’re eating out more and they get more influence from their friends. And, know, this is a very real thing. So it’s not meant to scare parents or have anybody feel ashamed. I think you have to have this almost simultaneous thought and focus on let me be as consistent as possible, setting a healthy nutrition foundation from food and supplementation but also let me have patience because if you’re starting to deal with a kid that’s a little bit older right now, maybe it’s not past the toddler years and there’s going to have to be some undoing or like setting of new examples, that’s going to take time and they might push back and they will push back initially, right? Like it’s not, it’s never going to be an overnight change when it comes to kids. Cause what we do, what’s really important is that they maintain a positive outlook with food, right? And that they don’t start to get resentful and all of these things. So you want to make it fun. They look to you first, right? Whether you know it or not, we always say little eyes are always watching, little ears are always listening, right? Like, what are you doing in front of them? Are you taking your supplements? And from a supplementation standpoint, it’s the same thing, right? If your child is only one in the house taking supplements, it’s going to feel weird for them.

Yep. We have that opportunity to lead by example. So let’s talk a little bit about some of the things that seem to be getting normalized a little bit. You we often say at Life Time that just because the symptom is common, it doesn’t mean it’s normal, you know, and we don’t necessarily want to think about it that way. But there are some common things that kids these days are struggling with. Can you speak to what those are and how they may be connected to nutrient status or nutrient deficiency?

Yes, there’s so many. So I want to preface this with, you know, I am a registered dietitian. I’m not a physician. I also want to say that everything that I’ll touch on is multifactorial. It’s not just nutrition, right? But nutrition does impact these different things that I’m going to go through, if that makes sense, right? It’s never just nutrition, but nutrition can either help it or harm it, right? So we think of, so think of kids right now, there’s this period of development when they’re young where they seem to catch every bug, right? Again, it’s their immune system and they need to build their immune system, right? Without exposure to those things and without getting the occasional fever, all that type of stuff, your kid’s immune system isn’t going to develop appropriately. So some of that’s good. But when you start talking about kids that are really struggling, they’re missing a ton of school, they maybe have to be home all the time. Perhaps they’re on, they have recurrent ear infections and they’re on recurrent rounds of antibiotics or they get recurrent croup, right? At night. That’s another one that might happen. It could be trouble focusing. So this is getting to be huge in school-aged children. And again, multifactorial, it could be because maybe they’re not getting as much physical activity as children need. But also if they’re deficient in certain nutrients, they’re gonna have a lack of focus and they might start having some behavioral issues. Or they might be more irritable than they should be because they’re not sleeping enough from both lifestyle habits and having a nutrient deficiency, right? So, if they’re not so, it’s the irritability, it’s the lack of focus, it’s some of the behavioral issues, it’s frequent infections that might require frequent heavy use of antibiotics. If you even start to just look at truthfully, thank goodness we have some of the medications that we do, but I think we would all be really blind to say our kids are more medicated now than they’ve ever been before. And is there something we can do from a lifestyle standpoint that might be able to optimize their health and why they need certain medications. And again, I want to be very clear, I’m not demonizing, there are times that it’s needed, but we should question, like, are we overusing them? Is there something else that maybe could be done or at least done in conjunction to help them even work better, right? But we, we normalize all of these things or even like, I think sometimes people immediately start to thinking about body composition for children. Like, yes, I think there’s no doubt that childhood obesity and weight issues are on the rise, societally. But what I find from, would say at least a lot of listeners I interact with, a lot of Life Time members. For families that maybe aren’t struggling with that, and maybe their kids are, know, “fit,” you know, maybe they’re doing sports and they’re a little bit leaner, all that type of stuff. I still hear a lot of parents struggling with health issues with their kids from the infection standpoint, the behavior standpoint. Lot of restless sleep questions that I get even from my friends circle. Hey, my kids can’t wind down. They can’t sleep really well. In early adolescence, as kids are getting hit with puberty a little bit earlier, I know young girls going through puberty and their periods are awful. They’re in real debilitating pain. And like there’s some real imbalances driving some of those things. like, my goodness. Like there’s so much that can be done in conjunction with nutrition and supplementation and your physician’s plan to help address some of those things and help our kids kind of more pleasantly and enjoyably go through some of this stuff.

Hey, Sam, and I know that we’re talking about supplementation, but we all know we can’t supplement for great whole foods and making sure that we eliminate a lot of the processed foods. But if we look at foods as a foundation for the supplements to help, when you look at the foods that have a lot of these healthy nutrients for our children. What are some certain foods that you strongly recommend? I know you threw some stats out there earlier as far as how we’re deficient in vegetables and fruits, but if you were just to say, if you can start here, what would that here look like?

Yeah, so really that’s where almost back to what you had said earlier, David, it’s not that much different than with adults, right? Like kids need, they need adequate protein and some of the new you know for people that consume animal proteins They are full of like I mentioned the vitamin b12 the important creatine, they’re full of zinc, right, they’re full of vitamin b6 these things these things are critical — omega-3 fatty acids, especially in childhood. DHA is — so a lot of times pregnant women know about this or you know women that are breastfeeding, DHA for neurological and brain development. It’s absolutely crucial. So ask yourself, are my kids eating fatty fish multiple times a week? Most people are gonna say no to that, right? Another one is, know, kids need fiber for the development of a healthy gut microbiome. You have to have enough fiber. You obviously don’t wanna be using too much kind of artificially synthetically made fiber, oftentimes added to processed foods. You want to be getting real fiber prebiotics to feed the good gut bacteria in your system, probiotics with vegetables and fruits, right? Healthy nuts and seeds, especially younger kids need more, I would say, healthy fat oftentimes then we need an adulthood too. So that becomes really important. That’s important for brain health and your neurological development. So there’s, you know, the vitamins, the minerals, the phytonutrients, it all works together in this awesome symphony. And if you’re sitting there as a parent, like, man, my kids are so far from that. You’re not alone. There’s a lot of people that are like, my kids actually, if I sit back, they’re not eating well currently, right? And it’s because our family is on the run. My kids now have strong opinions. I’d rather them eat than not eat at all for the ones that are really stubborn, right? So yeah, starting with those foods, there could be a whole episode on just what to do with kid nutrition from food. But I think all of this that we’re talking about just kind of underscores the fact that like supplements can only help, you know? And we’ve said the quote before that there’s no diet that’s so good that it can’t benefit from supplementation. And I think a lot of parents will say, know what? My kid’s diet actually isn’t even that good. So maybe I can do something in addition to the longer work of changing what they’re eating to maybe help fill in some of those nutrient gaps in the meantime. And that becomes almost more important. Sometimes people want to say, which one? Food or supplements? And I’m like, why? It’s not a mutually exclusive thing. If somebody is not eating well, I’m not pretending supplements will make up for that, but it almost makes their nutrient needs from supplementation even more impactful, right? Because they’re even more deficient.

Right, it’s a both and here, not an either or. Like we really need to focus on that, I think, right? OK, I’m sitting here as a parent of 13- and 11-year old girls. And thankfully my girls have been pretty good eaters, but we do go through these phases where it’s like, it feels like we’re just eating on the run, so we’re not getting what we need. And that’s true for me too, because we’re all doing it. So it’s like, how do we prioritize those meals? And it’s one of the things we’re constantly working on as a family. don’t know, David, if you can speak to that as well. Now, Sam, you have a little guy as well. Like it can be really challenging to do that, but when, you know, like I have some of the supplements that we’re gonna talk about for my girls and I do feel like that makes a difference. It helps to balance those everyday lifestyle challenges that we face in terms of eating well all the time. And I don’t think that’s something we can strive to be perfect at, think. But 80% of the time can we do pretty well and then have that leeway. Anyway, I don’t know if either of you have thoughts on that, but that’s where I struggle as a parent is like, our lifestyles are so busy, so how can we do it all?

On any given day, most kids in the US, there’s a one in three chance that they’re gonna eat fast food, right? And I don’t think that’s because any parent wakes up in the morning and is like, wanna give my kid fast food today. It’s we are spent, we’re out of groceries, we are going from this practice to that one and my kids need to eat. I can’t like, you know, deprive food from my children and let them be hungry if I have the means to feed them. So it is, David, I think what you said earlier was gold, honestly. It’s not that much different than the struggles of an adult, right? It’s really is like, we’re busy. What can we do to set ourselves up for success with planning and for the times that we will fall short because Jamie, what you said is right. We will fall short. We perfection is unattainable. You can’t shame yourself for that. We live in a go, go, go society. What can I do that’s easy on a daily basis from a supplementation standpoint to just help close the gap a little bit. But David, I don’t know if you want to have anything you want to share because I know you got two little ones too.

Yeah. I mean, just getting them involved and understanding the why as well. I think like Harley’s been taking a big like, and that’s my daughter for those listening. And she’s 8 years old, but she’s been taking a liking of like, can I help cook? like getting them involved and understanding like what it is that they’re putting in their body and the benefits, the educational piece I think is valuable as well. They watch, I mean, you see any and everything, you know this, if you have kids, they watch YouTube and the good thing about YouTube sometimes is they have some of these educational resources that might be speaking to some of the benefits behind vegetables and fruits. So to be able to take a little bit of what it is that they enjoy doing around watching YouTube and now bringing that into real life in the kitchen, they have a lot of these aha moments and not forcing it is a key piece, making it fun, making it educational. I think we learn so much more from our kids than we will ever teach them and just having that patience in that space. Which kind of leads me to the next question, Sam, to be honest, is all those who are listening right now, parents, soon to be parents, who might be a little hesitant on supplements. We obviously know the benefits. We’ve been talking about it throughout this whole episode, but just understanding the important role, because supplements are different, as we might put it. I got air quotes going on as it comes to kids. We know them for so many years supplements for adults. So how do you now have this conversation with adults about supplements for kids?

Yeah, well, I kind of want to hit on two things from all that you were saying with Harley and cooking. That’s amazing. We almost need like a kids and food episode. The other thing I wanted to hit on that spark and then I’ll get to your question is what’s really cool is that kids are a lot more intuitive than adults. I find adults we kind of rationalize and overthink and kids are just unfiltered, raw and intuitive. And what’s cool is not just from a food standpoint, but when you’re supplementing them correctly and with high quality supplementation and basically meeting nutrient needs, they notice whether consciously or subconsciously that they are feeling better and they become more and more willing to do it. And there’s a true intuition there of like, hey, my kid’s getting more and more willing to do this. Yeah. That’s like their, their bodies and their systems — as woo-woo as it sounds, I’ve seen it play out in my own eyes with clients and clients’ families of kids become very willing because there’s this subtle intuition of, know this is helping me. To your point, David, how do you first introduce supplementation with parents or how do you first introduce it, is I think you need to start thinking about it as nutrition and stop thinking about it as I’m taking supplements and pills. Start thinking of it as nutrition and realizing we need to do everything we can in our power to combat this explosion in the health direction that our kids’ health’s are going in this country. What can I do, what is within my power that’s not overwhelming, to help optimize what’s going into their bodies so that they can grow and develop appropriately? And supplementation is one of the answers to that. It is not the answer. It is not the only thing. It’s doable, it’s simple, and it can only help when you’re taking the right forms of nutrients. So I always say, let’s start talking with the things nobody would argue that we know kids need. Vitamins, minerals, omega-3 fatty acids. Let’s just start there and try to get your kids to fish it there, and then usually people will start to listen.

I love that. And now that you have parents buy in, let’s say they heard you, like, OK, I’m going to do this. I think one of the additional challenges on top of that is all of the supplementations that are on the market. And a lot of what we’re seeing out there that’s available, it’s marketed to kids in the form of gummies or characters or fun colors, you know, and those things for us as adults, if we’re aware of that, they could be signaling that the company may be prioritizing the marketing over the quality of the product. So can you speak to why quality matters so much and what consumers and parents can look for when it comes to choosing a quality supplement?

There’s a lot. So the first thing that we always want to do is talk about the ingredient list, right? So what you want to avoid first of all is ideally with kids, especially because they’re growing and developing and supplements are concentrated products that are ideally taken daily. It becomes more important to try to avoid artificial sweeteners. It becomes more important to try to avoid artificial colorings if you can. So try to stay away from that. And you want to make sure that you’re supplying their metabolisms that are just rapidly developing and growing and having all these processes. You want to have their metabolisms get the most activated forms of nutrients possible. And what I mean by that is that you could take a vitamin, let’s say folate, and there are several different forms of folate that can be used in a supplement option. If you’re using something like folic acid as a company, folic acid is a more synthetic form of folate and not everybody has the metabolism and the genetics to convert it to the active form for it to really be used. So when across the board of supplementation and this applies to children as well, you want to make sure that you are getting activated nutrient form. So most people will do better with like a methylated folate. Most people do better with an activated form of B12. So, you know, I know we’ll probably put resources in the show notes, but there’s a more synthetic form of B12 called cyanocobalamin, then there’s a more activated form that your body tends to utilize more easily called methylcobalamin. Now, activated nutrient forms from a product standpoint, whenever you’re sourcing those raw materials, they’re more expensive for a company, but they’re also more effective metabolically. So companies that have, let’s say, folic acid as their folate or cyanocobalamin as their B12, to me, when I’m shopping for my son, if I see those on the label, I know that that company is sourcing cheaper raw ingredients, right? So I’m not going to those even if they might not. For some people, they’re harmful or problematic. For most people, they’re just not effective, right? And so I’m like, to me, that’s a sign that the company is cutting corners. So I would start with those two usually, plus looking for those artificial sweeteners and artificial colors and steering clear. You want to stick with sweeteners with things like monk fruit or stevia. For colorings, you want to look for things that are colorings coming from food. So it could come from beets or spirulina versus, you know, the colorings that have all the letters and numbers on them on the label.

Alright. So you took us down a little bit of the ingredient lane to be able to know what we should be looking for as far as parents. And then like when it comes to adults, we have here at Life Time, like our foundational five, like our multivitamin, fish oil, magnesium, vitamin D and digestive enzymes. When we look at, don’t know, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to have five for the children, but is it that much different for the kids or how would you look at the foundational five or triple threat three or however you want to go about it? What would you say the best supplements or core supplements for kids should be?

Sure. No, I love all of that. you know, it kind of, it starts with, I would say, can you get a good kind of a broad spectrum, kill several birds with one stone, a good multivitamin, right? Because that can fill in several nutrient gaps. So that’s similar to the adult side. You know, at Life Time, we carry something called Kids Vite. It’s a powder, right? You can mix it into different foods and beverages. And it has only activated nutrient forms. And you know, the thing that I really like about Kids Vite is that it not only has that, but it has a strain of probiotic in there. It has a little bit of fiber in there so that feeds, you know, the probiotic. has a curcumin extract in there, which is anti-inflammatory — kids are sometimes dealing with inflammation. So I would say a good, well formulated kids multivitamin with the right nutrient forms in there would be at the top of the list along with omega-3 fish oil. I know we have a ton of resources on Experience Life specific to fish oil and the importance of omega-3s, but I cannot stress that enough. I know most kids, like raise your hand if your kids eating, you know, several ounces of salmon five days a week. And most people are going to say, OK, that’s not happening. I don’t even know if my kid would touch salmon. Maybe some kids will, but maybe they’re not having it enough. So I would say those as kind of the top two, along with a magnesium supplement and then making sure that you’re supplementing vitamin D based off of their blood levels. More pediatricians are drawing vitamin D in kids, which I’m really excited to see, but you want to make sure that you’re optimizing that as well. We do have some vitamin D layered into our supplements, even though we don’t have a standalone, but you might want to do a standalone like vitamin D3 with K2 drop, for example, but I would say to answer your question, at least from the Life Time line, we have Kids Vite, we have something called Kid-O-Mega. And then the last one is magnesium. Magnesium, there are so many kids that are below optimal magnesium. We’re seeing it with like the chronic constipation kids are having, the hyperactivity, trouble sleeping that oftentimes points to magnesium. So we have like a Magfizz drink powder too.

OK, Sam, just cause I want the listeners to come back to this part and like play it over and over. Each one you just mentioned, this is going to be a new one. This is something I’m throwing at you right now. Just going to be a quick fire, quick fire. I’m just going to say it. I’m going to say it. And then you say benefit behind it just for the parent to be connected to us. So the Kids Vite, the multivitamin benefit, go:

Fill in basic nutrient gaps.

Kid-O-Mega:

I would say brain health and neurological development.

Magnesium:

Relaxation and sleep.

Those three. Did I miss any?

Nope. That was three.

So it was a triple threat?

It was a triple threat. Kids Vite, Kid-O-Mega, and Magfizz, right? Those are kind of the three I would start with. So it’s nice because, like I said, the Kids Vite, it’s got the activated nutrient forms. It’s a powder. You can hide it in things. There’s a lot of different ways to kind of get that done. I just mix it with a little bit of juice and kind of give it. Kid-O-Mega is a liquid. Most people are like, how in the world am I going to get my kid to take fish oil? Well, it’s kind of like a really light cherry flavor, you know, because it is a fatm uf they won’t take it right from a spoon, if you start them young, will, if you start them young, they will, right, but if you got a kid that’s a little bit older, they’re like, you’re giving me a spoonful of oil right now. Like even if it tastes OK, it might be a bit weird for them. You can mix it into any like fatty type food. So you could stir a little bit into a smoothie that has nut butter in it. You can stir it into like a full fat yogurt if they’ll eat that, right. Even if it’s a little bit of a flavored yogurt. Again, it’s if you took a spoonful of the Kid-O-Mega, it’s like a light cherry flavor. It is actually palatable. It’s just getting kids to do it for the first couple of times. And then the Magfizz, I actually find kids like that. Again, it makes like a fizzy lemon lime drink. But if you need to add like a little splash of OJ or something for them to make it fun and have that maybe after dinner as their fun little evening treat, you can do that too.

Sam, how would we source the kids line at Life Time? Because I know this is relatively new for us to have the kids supplementation line and these products. Like when you’re, when you and the team are looking at getting that high quality source of this, how do we go about doing that?

It’s different for every ingredient, but we do it the same way we do with the adult supplements, right? So you have to look at each raw ingredient separately. There’s no like one source of all of the nutrients, right? So you look at raw ingredient suppliers, they go through an extensive vetting process. Then the raw ingredients are tested whenever they arrive to the manufacturing facilities to make sure they are what they say they are and they don’t have any contaminants, right? Our manufacturing process is super diligent. So it goes through an extensive vetting and making sure that not only the raw ingredients are pure and that they are how they’re supposed to be, but that there’s final product testing to make sure that they’re safe by the time they get into the hands of our children, right? So it’s very, we don’t compromise our standards for any of the products that we bring on board. And so it’s especially true with the kids supplementation line as well.

So in addition to those, the triple threat as David’s now referring to them, we have a few other products as well and items we want to talk through. One of them being the vitamin C chew. So tell us a little bit about that and why it’s important.

My kid loves that one. That one is his favorite. I got to make sure to keep it up high so that he doesn’t take too many vitamin C’s and give himself diarrhea, right? But I will say like the vitamin C chew is, they are, they’re a really pleasant tasting vitamin C tablet. There’s 300 milligrams of vitamin C per tablet. It’s chewable. If you’ve got a smaller kid, you can kind of break it in half pretty easily. But what I like about it is that there’s certain, there’s rose hips in there and bioflavonoids, which it kind of makes it a little bit more of a vitamin C complex. So it works a little bit better in your body than just a standalone, let’s say, ascorbic acid only vitamin C, right? So it becomes a little bit more, because if you know anything about phytonutrients and plant nutrients, the closer it is to their natural form, the better that it works. The vitamin C2, there’s a couple of different reasons that I, you know, like as David mentioned, I’d say the Kids Vite, the Magfizz and the Kid-O-Mega are like the core, right? Like at least personally in our house, my kids never not on those. They’re just on them all the time, right? From a vitamin C2 standpoint, there are certain times to use it. You can do it ongoing long term, that’s totally fine. Particularly if your kid is not eating produce, right? If your kid’s not a big fruit veggie eater, they can just stay on the vitamin C2s every day. But I would say for kids that maybe have like iron deficiency is a huge issue with kids. I know a lot of my friends deal with low iron in their children. If your kids are tossing and turning a lot at night and not sleeping, sometimes that’s an iron deficiency. For the times that they will eat meat, right? Or iron containing foods, if they take a vitamin C2 with it, they’ll actually absorb more iron in that meal, which is a little hack. It can also be really beneficial for helping support detoxification. So one thing that I always do, especially in the summer months, if my kids in chlorine and swimming a lot, I’m trying to replenish his glutathione and try to replenish his detoxification capacity. He’s taken vitamin C2s, you know, the couple days before, a couple days after swimming. If it’s summertime or your kids in swim, that’s one of the times that I really like to do that as well. And then obviously everybody’s thinking back to school, immune season, all of that type of stuff. That’s probably the most well-known way to use vitamin C2s, but that one is a really great one and it like tastes awesome. I would say kids love it.

Well, you teed it up nicely on this next one. I mean, just from the immunity standpoint, when we look at another supplement within our kids’ portfolio, we also have the Immune-E-Z, which has the zinc and the elderberry. You want to tell us a little bit about that one?

Yeah. So this one is a little bit typically used more cyclically, right? When there’s different like bugs going around, different, you know, if you’re kind of concerned. I always like using this one anytime every parent listening to this will be like, yes, before any plane travel, during plane travel, right? I feel like there’s so much stuff we can pick up at the airport and all of that. But the immune easy has two different forms of zinc. There’s a citrate and a gluconate. Gluconate is the more well-researched one that’s typically found in like adult lozenges, right? It’s kind of been shown to help support throat and respiratory health. So it’s got two different forms of zinc in there. It has a thousand I use of vitamin D. So I mentioned the importance of vitamin D earlier, absolutely crucial for growth and development, completely critical for immune health. And then what’s really nice is it has some elderberry in there. So I get asked questions on elderberry all the time. Elderberry fruit and extract, it can be supportive of the immune system, especially when used around times where you’re exposed to a lot more potential pathogens than usual. So that one’s a really nice one. It’s a similar texture and size to the vitamin C chews, but it’s, we call it a lozenge because for older kids that will let it dissolve in their mouth, that’s the ideal way to use it. But for younger kids that you know are just going to crunch right through it, it’ll still at least accomplish the task at hand, right? It’s still OK to do that. Optimally, if they’ll let it dissolve in their mouth, then great. But that one is a good one to throw in around back to school or any types of travel. I always throw it in around the holidays because I feel like just serendipitously, it’s like, doesn’t someone always get sick around the holidays? So try to reduce the risk. I try to reduce the risk of that happening. I love it because it’s got the 23 milligrams of zinc. And as a reminder, I think most people know, like, yeah, vitamin C, zinc for your immune system. Think with your kids, especially because of picky eating and not wanting to eat meat. One of the best sources of zinc in our diet is meat. So particularly if you have a picky eater, they’re probably, or if you’re following as a family plant-based eating, the risk of zinc deficiency is really high. So you need to be repleting with that and being really careful about zinc.

And then you’ve alluded a few different times in this episode so far, Sam, to kids kind of being a little restless or not being able to wind down and all of those things. I know one other thing we’re offering, one other product is called Calm. So tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah. So this one, this is just personal preference. I love the Calm product. I always have people make sure that they’re on the Magfizz first, right? So kids that maybe have a lower attention span, which I think a lot of people could describe their children that way. It’s been found that about 70% of kids with a low attention span, some low attention span is normal in children, let’s be real. But I think we’re talking about where it’s starting to impact them negatively. 70% of them are low in magnesium. So make sure that you’re kind of taking a good magnesium supplementation like the Magfizz. But there’s one called Calm, which why I love this one is the main active ingredient in it is an L-theanine. And L-theanine is an amino acid. It’s sourced from green tea. And it’s not sedating, it actually can help calm your brain to the point where it’s easier to focus. So you can do it during the day without sedating effects. But what’s nice is you can also do it in the evening to just help stimulate more even keeled brain activity, right? So some of the research and reports on L-theanine are that it can stimulate basically alpha waves in your brain that almost mimic the type of brain waves that happen during meditation. It’s not a replacement for stress management, but it’s really nice. kind comes in a flavored spray, a naturally flavored spray that tastes good. And so it’s a nice little add -on. Most people use it at night to help their kids calm down in combination with the Magfizz. But for kids that are just like going, going, going, going, going, right? And they’re kind of all over the place. And they’re just sort of a little bit more on the very active side, they’re a little bit more so than their peers. It’s OK to use during the day or even before school or even before homework time after school if needed as well.
Well, Sam, did we miss any? feel like those were the ones that we knew about ahead of time, but is there anything we missed or anything you just want to add before we start to wrap up this episode and hand it over to David for his final question?

Yeah, you know, I’ve said this, I said it earlier and I’ll say it again. Obviously, before you start any supplementation, always run it by your pediatrician. Make sure that they’re in the know. There are medically complex kids out there. There are different genetic mutations. There are different things. Now, don’t say that fearfully. I would say you want to run that by your pediatrician as much as you would maybe run what you’re feeding them by your pediatrician, right? Some people are really like, I don’t know about this multivitamin. I’m like, have you inspected the whole ingredient list of the fast food that you got after soccer practice the other day, right? Like you wanna have that same critical eye for things that are more convenient. But I would say work with your physician all the time. These aren’t the only supplements that your kids might need, right? And I’m not saying that they have to be on all of these right now, but for example, there have been periods of time that my son has needed extra detox support or maybe he had antibiotics and I’m like hammering in different types of probiotics, you know, before, during, and after that. And so just like adults it ebbs and flows, but if you are brand new to this and you’re just getting started, I do think it’s like a kids and eating episode might be great to do, right? Like we know some of those basic things to do, alluding to what David talked about earlier. But if you’re brand new to this nutrient insurance policy with the high-quality Kids Vite, you know, multivitamin powder. Let me get them the critical omega-3 fatty acids that you have to obtain through diet and supplementation, omega-3s. Let me get them on this light cherry flavored fish oil, right? Let me make sure that they’re getting that mineral that most people are deficient in, particularly if they’re active or sweating or stressed out. Let me get them some Magfizz. Like, let’s just start there as the basics. And then if you’re willing to cycle in some of the others based off of your kid’s needs, then awesome. Try not to get overwhelmed and reach out to us at Life Time if you need help, right? There are different ways to contact us if you need support and so we can always get your questions answered too.

Well, thank you, Sam. As always, I’m gonna do a little different type of mic drop moment. I’m gonna put both myself and Jamie in the hot seat and you can tell us if we’re right or wrong, alright? And I know you probably can lead with it depends. But if we end up saying or asking the question, Jamie, what do we think one of the most nutrient deficient or minerals within our kids are around the world? If you had to guess, what would you think it is as far as what nutrient is one of the highest deficiencies that we have in kids?

I would guess that it’s probably similar to adults. And I know vitamin D status is pretty low for a lot of people. So I would say vitamin D.

I was going to say vitamin D, but since you said vitamin D, I want to go off of what Sam said earlier. Maybe she was hinting. I’m going to say iron.

It’s well, you said around the world. So around the world, iron is one of the main ones. That’s why there’s fortified foods, right? If you’re talking, are you asking me what the number one deficiency is?

I guess one of the most. Yeah.

But if it’s number one, I would say the most common deficiencies that I see, let’s put it that way with the clients that I’m working with. I see a lot of vitamin D, a lot of iron and a lot of magnesium, plus B vitamins, right? Oftentimes — and zinc. I just said like five. It’s the thing is, is that this applies to adults as well. We like to think in nutrients. We like to think protein. We like to think B12, but food doesn’t exist that way. Food is several different nutrients and usually more than one macronutrient in one. So when you’re not eating enough of the right foods, you become deficient in everything. Which explains your answer a little bit, right? Yeah. Like if a kid’s not eating, if a kid won’t eat, you know, the fish and the chicken breast and the, you know, beef that you’re giving them at dinner, lunch and dinner every day they’re gonna be low in their B12 and they’re gonna be low in their zinc and they’re gonna be low in their protein and you know, that’s like the whole everything that comes with it, they’re gonna be low in. So, David, I’m sorry. I feel like I never give you a direct answer for your question.

I knew it was gonna, that’s why I said that depends. But are you, so you are saying, like so for the U.S. it might be all those different variables, but you’re saying worldwide it is iron because of fortified food, would you say there?

Oftentimes, if you’re looking worldwide, so if you’re starting to think about countries where literally food access is an issue and food hunger, right? That’s where there’s massive kind of federal and even government supplies of food, and they are fortifying food delivery with all kinds of nutrients to get these kids sufficient. That doesn’t necessarily apply to Western society where we’re talking about running from soccer practice and eating fast food and then supplementing with supplements. It’s a different scenario. I would say the growth and development needs are the same across the board. It’s just kids in those situations have it a lot rougher.

Sam, I feel like this episode, like all of the episodes that you’re on is just so jam packed full of info. So we’ll be making sure to put a lot of this in the show notes. We’ll link to additional resources for people and we’ll connect them with you. You’re at @coachesam.rd on Instagram. You’ve also written a lot of content for Experience Life. So that’s available. We’ll link to some of that content as well. And we know already we’re having you back on to talk about kids and food and eating, how do we help support them, so we’re going to plan ahead. We’re going to, you’ll be back soon.

David, you could take that one too with a little cooking show at the Freeman’s.

We’ll do it. We’ll do it.

Thank you for having me on to talk about this. It’s just such an important topic. And I understand you want to be skeptical with different things that you’re giving your kids, right? In their body, but just remember that it is far better to be nutrient sufficient using children’s supplements than it is to let your children continue to be nutrient insufficient for months and years on end, right? So have that type of mindset and it might feel new, but work with the right professionals, work with your pediatrician and just know that it can only help when you do it the right way and have the right quality stuff.

Sam, thank you again. And we will be talking to you soon.

Awesome. Thanks guys.

[MUSIC]

Thanks for joining us for this episode. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on our conversation today and how you approach this aspect of healthy living in your own life. What works for you? Where do you run into challenges? Where do you need help?

And if you have topics for future episodes, you can share those with us too. Email us at lttalks@lt.life or reach out to us on Instagram @Lifetime.life, @jamiemartinel, or @freezy30 and use the hashtag #LifeTimeTalks.

You can also learn more about the podcast at ExperienceLife.Lifetime.Life/Podcasts. And if you’re enjoying Life Time Talks, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. If you like what you’re hearing, we’d love to hear from you by rating and reviewing the podcast and share it on your social channels too.

Thanks for listening. We’ll talk to you next time on Life Time Talks.

Life Time Talks is a production of Life Time Healthy Way of Life. It takes an amazing team to pull together each episode, including executive producer, Molly Kopischke, audio engineer, Peter Perkins, audio and video editors, Kevin Dixon and Riley Lester, and podcast coordinator, Sara Ellingsworth. A big thanks to Coy Larson for sound and video consulting and George Norman for project management, as well as the rest of the team at Life Time Motion who supports and provides feedback for Life Time Talks.

[MUSIC]