Kids and Healthy Foods

Dr. Jim Applegate joins us to discuss the importance of kids eating healthy food and what missing a meal might mean for their development. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome into West Michigan's Morning News Friday edition. Our favorite
one of the week. Joining Schmidty and for Steve Kelly
and Brett Pakita on our liveline is Doc Applegate.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good morning, Doc, Good morning. Now.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
We have been talking all morning about our feed the
Future fundraise are going on right now. You can donate
Wood Radio dot com very easy and it benefits kids
Food Basket. And a big part of our conversation has
been the importance of good nutrition for kids. And I
can't think of someone better than a doctor who sees

(00:34):
that every day talking about how important it is our
kids get good food.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, it really is. And I like the term. A
lot of people will use the term nutritious food, but
we all know, but you know that gets all the
scientific stuff. But we all know the difference between good
food and bad food. And unfortunately a lot of our
kids are exposed to food and not really good food.
And if you think of out the physical growth that

(01:01):
children go through, you know, they start out at this
tiny little thing and then they grow just you know,
some six foot behemoth. It's just amazing. You know, all
their muscles, grow, their bones, their physical developments that they have,
and that requires a lot of energy, and that's why
kids need really good food to give them that energy

(01:23):
to allow good growth. You don't want to arrest their
growth somewhere along the way. So that's the first thing
that's important in good nutrition. The second thing that goes
along with that is brain development. You know, all our
kids go to school and they have to develop their brains. Now,
what's different than muscles and bones. Your brain uses a

(01:43):
lot of fat to grow. So the omega three fatty
acids in particular are real important. Those are difficult to
get unless you have good dare I say nutritious food,
because that really puts the brain in a good place
to continue to grow for cognitive funk, for memory, for concentration.
It's really important that kids get all of those fats

(02:07):
for their brain development and doc.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
One of the things that I think is helpful in
that in today's society you see them everywhere every community
up north, whatever the case would be, especially in Michigan,
is farmers' markets. The availability of fruit, the availability of
vegetables more than ever now that you can access which
is awesome. I love it. And when you start the

(02:29):
kids at a young age, like what is it Sophia
that won't eat her corn unless it's off the cop R.
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
And that's a compromise you can make. You know, anyway
you can get a kid eat a vegetable be in
you know, it's just like you want it off the
cop fine, I'll give it to you off the cop
And the other thing that's that I find really interesting
about kids and good food that we don't think about
is how much it affects their emotions. Think about how
good you feel when you've had a really good meal,

(03:01):
you know something that your you know, your wife or
your mom or your grandmam used to make for you
when you were growing up, How good you felt inside.
And that's one of the things that's really important. They've
done numerous studies to show how, you know, having good
food will decrease mood swings, will decrease anxiety in children.
You know, we all know when children get angry. And

(03:23):
if you think about a baby, think about a baby
when they get their stomach folds, how good they feel,
how they're smiling at you. And that goes not just
for babies, that goes for six year olds and sixteen
year olds. So really giving them good food is really
important for their emotional wellbeing. They know that they're loved
by having a full stomach. That really with that good

(03:43):
nutritious food in them.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
And Doc, we talk about setting the healthy habits, but seriously,
there are so many diseases that kids don't understand yet
but later in life can happen and you don't have
the foundation of nutrition in your.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Life right because you need it for energy, you need
its activity, you need performance. The way I think about it,
you know, if you have a racecar, like a formulau
on racecar, you don't fill that up with you know,
with just regular gas. They need good gas. And children
need good food to grow and to prevent disease. So
you know, that's really really important. Most of you know

(04:20):
that I left corporate medicine five years ago because corporate
medicine sucks, and I'm now work at a free clinic
and part of our building is dedicated to a food
bank which is dedicated to giving good food to families
and they fill backpacks to send home with kids. It's
really important that they get that good nutrition, those good

(04:41):
foods all the time.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Great stuff. Doctor Jim Applegate, former Family Physician of the
Year for the state of Michigan. We appreciate your time today, Doc,
Happy Friday, Happy Friday years going right, yeah,