Health and Wellness Newsletter
Hippocrates
Let food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food. 
Our Office
spa logo

 

IN THIS ISSUE
Media
Diabetes
Chemical Experiment
QUICK LINKS
QUICK LINKS 2
QUICK LINKS 3
JOIN OUR LIST
FREE THOUGHTS


You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

 


 

 Jonathan Safran Foer 

Quality Products

Organickidz Stainless Steel Baby Bottle.

A recommendation from a reader that meets our goal of avoiding plastic. 

Please email me your favorite products.  I would like to share quality products with our readers. Think - car seats, toys, anything that a mother would love!
 
FEEDBACK

Please reply with feedback or questions here.  I will try to answer as many questions via the newsletter as possible.  As always be well and love your children!

 

The forum
simply good
Dr. Magryta
Go to www.salisburypediatrics.com,  if you would like to learn about Integrative Medicine or our practice

 

Issue: #6
January 26, 2015
Beautiful Happiness

Volume 5, Letter 6

January 26, 2015

As I continue to struggle with parenting around media and video games at home, I thought it appropriate to share some of my personal story. My son has given me carte blanche to share our world with you. 

 

To my dismay, my darling 11 year old son inherited his father's gene for loving media of all forms. Whether it is music, movies, video games, etc..., he loves and is slightly addicted to them. I informed him that I have had my own issues around the lovely iPhone and being present moment when I need to be. 

 

I find both of our issues irritating but not life threatening. What to do?

 

I find that for me, I have to keep awareness of my activities and keep my phone away during times when I need to be present moment. Leaving it in the car at family dinner outings or other precious family times is useful. 

 

Parenting around the media is a whole other issue. My son decided to follow a few friends on instagram after explaining to us his plan and how he will let us monitor these activities. After he started to view the site, he fell into a zone of watching the world fly by. I let him go to see how long it would continue. 90 minutes later I had to step in and make him aware of the sink hole that just developed in his road of life. He fell right in. 

 

He did his defensive thing and we talked. Being open to how hard the immediate gratification world is today is powerful. Being vulnerable and saying that you get it and it is hard for you as well makes you human. 

 

I cannot be blind to the reality of the media world of today. They will be exposed despite all of our best efforts. My wife and I have decided to allow some and follow it carefully under our watch. I find that at the tender age of 11 my son responds better to our parenting by having some control. He wants to try and fail and try again all the while being loved. We can give him that as best as we can.

 

He is impressing me lately. Today he got up with me at 625am and instead of asking for the password for the computer, he asked me to play chess until I left for work. I know it sounds like nothing special, but to me it tells me that he cherishes our time and that maybe he is AWARE of his media desires. Maybe it is wishful thinking or seeds of a new media based life that is grounded in our common goal, his growth. 

 

Goals of a modern media friendly parenting style:

 

1) Model the behavior you wish to see. Keep family time for the family. Keep your iPhone or media time when you are alone or have dedicated time. 

 

2) Stay involved. Help them navigate the media world. This will go a long way to preventing cyber bullying and show them that you love them. 

 

3) Be open with your kids. Let them sound off with you on concerns so that they do not turn to the internet for the answers or worse a friend. This is hard because it means trying not to be judgmental. I find that I struggle with this at times based on my own upbringing. 

 

4) Have a docking station for all media devices in the kitchen. They stay down after dinner. 

 

5) NO TV's in a bedroom - period. Including yours. Modeling.

 

6) Set a time limit for media daily. Our house has 0 hours from sunday night at 5pm to friday night at 5 pm on school nights. We give 1-2 hours on weekends. Being able to play games is a privilege and not a RIGHT. 

 

7) Educate them about what they post on social media. It is out there immediately and forever. (thankfully we are not there yet) 

 

8) Tell them to never share a password with anyone other than a parent. Their site is their site and what goes out is assumed to be theirs. Never give out personal information online. No exceptions. Criminals troll for this data to cause harm. 

 

9) Have them report any strange things that they encounter to you. Keep that channel open. It could be lifesaving. 

 

10) Any other ideas? Write them to me and I will post some of them. 

 

Always learning and evolving on the fly with media,

 

 

 

Dr. M

 

 

 

Diabetes and Food

We have long known that diabetes is a disease of genetics, diet and time. In previous newsletters, I discussed another trigger for diabetes, chemicals. New research is proving to us how this is happening. 

It turns out that inside the cells of our body we have insulin receptors that are effected by the hormone insulin. When insulin bids to the receptor it triggers a change in the shape of the receptor which in turn acts as a signal to the cell to reduce sugar production if it is in the liver, or depositing the ingested sugar as fat in a fat cell and so on. This is the normal physiology of our bodies. 

What would happen if the the insulin receptor could be bound by chemicals or inflammatory proteins in the body? You guessed it. Abnormal receptor function. This happens in the case of dioxin binding to the receptor or LPS, a fat sugar molecule produced by abnormal bacteria in our guts when we eat a standard american diet. 

In other words chemicals and abnormal gut bacteria promote a dysfunctional metabolic system by binding and negatively influencing the insulin receptor. This abnormal receptor binding by non hormonal means is likely the common pathway to many diseases. Most researchers now believe that inflammation in the body is driving most disease. Abnormal diets, chemicals and stress are driving the inflammation and the rest is disease. 
 
The Bottom line:

To avoid these disease onset risks we all need to embrace a plant based, anti inflammatory diet and avoid chemicals as much as possible. Flour and added sugar are the roots of most cellular dysfunction. Teach your kids to eat in a life sustaining way. 

Dr. M
Cooking Class

Save the date!

March 19th at the Center for the Environment at Catawba College.

We will be hosting a cooking demonstration. Dr. Chris Nagy and I will answer all types of questions about food, mood, the gut and human health while we cook.

We plan to make bone broth, ghee, teach pickling and maybe even kombucha. The primary goal of this lecture is to discuss gut healing foods and how to make them.

See you there!

Dr.M 
Fast Food Chem Experiment

6 and 1/2 months of sitting on my shelf at work. The fast food experiment carries on with no change. I suspect at this point that it will last for years. 

Eat it if you want to. 
 

Newsletter Photos
 
If you have any pictures of your family that you wish to share for the header of this newsletter -
 
please send them to:
 
 

 

 

The newsletter archive can be found in the links section.  New readers can now go back in time to learn about the future!

 

Copyright � 2010-2015 Christopher J. Magryta, MD. Readers, please note: The information provided in this newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for advice and treatment provided by your physician or other healthcare professional and is not to be used to diagnose or treat a health issue.


 


Chris Magryta
Salisbury Pediatric Associates
Touchstone Pediatrics