EP37: The Role Stress Has On Your Child's Health

The Role Stress Has On Your Child's Health

Stress is a natural, mental and physical response to life experiences and situations. Stress can affect anyone, even children. Early life stress exposure may disrupt hormones that regulate appetite, metabolism, and fat storage, increasing the risk of obesity and unhealthy eating behaviors, and unhealthy fat deposition patterns. We have to keep in mind our kids aren't going to exactly come right out and tell us that they're stressed. Some of the physical, emotional, and behavioral cues might not be that easy to decipher for parents. In this episode, we're going to review how to identify it, what it does, the role it has in your child's health, and most importantly, what to do about it.

Here are the key areas covered in this episode:

✔️ Keep in mind that there aren't bad kids. Just because we don't perceive a situation as stressful doesn't mean that children aren't stressed out by it. They're little people feeling big emotions, and their perception is what's creating their reality. The ways that they may be trying to tell you are easy to pick up on once you're able to watch and listen with patience, empathy, and an understanding of what some of the signs may be.

✔️ Understand that stress leads to obesity. Studies found that children exposed to chronic stressors in early childhood had lower self-regulatory abilities measured by an ability to delay gratification and a larger BMI.

✔️Why leptin and ghrelin are the two hormones that play a crucial role in appetite regulation. When leptin is released, it acts as satiety, meaning feeling full signal, decreasing energy and food intake. Ghrelin, on the other hand, has the opposite role. It stimulates hunger upon its release.

✔️Know why cortisol release may lead to excessive consumption of foods high in sugar and fat and ultimately excessive weight gain. Exposure to repeated stressors, both a blunted cortisol reactivity response to stress or an elevated BMI body mass index may be observed.

✔️Stress is another byproduct of poor sleep habits and quality. When you have poor sleep, you experience an increased response to food stimuli, meaning you're hungrier and have decreased leptin levels.

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We created the HOW TO guide with tips and tricks to transition your family to eating clean, feeling more connected, and being active and fit. Each week you will receive access to modules with lessons that cover mindfulness practices, nutritional know-how, and psychological tips and tricks with a library of resources to create deeper connections while increasing immune strength and instilling a lifelong enjoyment of clean foods for your entire family!

https://www.crystalclearkids.online/fsp