809: Being the “Weird Parent” In a World of Sugar, Vegetable Oils, and EMFs With Dr. Cameron Chesnut

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I am back today with Dr. Cameron Chesnut. We had a fascinating first interview all about how he trains for peak performance in daily life, essentially as a surgeon who shows up like a professional athlete in his work. And in this conversation, we get to talk about a topic that he and I both don’t get to talk about that often, which is the parenting side of things. And how his life philosophies of curiosity and questioning things show up in his parenting mindset as well. I found out we’re very aligned on a lot of things, but I really enjoyed this conversation about being the weird parent in a world of sugar and vegetable oils and EMFs. And he shares some of the kind of alternative things he does with his kids and his family that have led to great health results for them, but also his parenting approach and how he approaches things like teaching solid foundational habits to his kids, the importance of not always just keeping them comfortable, and so much more. So it was such a pleasure to get to have a parenting conversation with someone who is essentially a peak performance surgeon. And I think you’ll really enjoy this conversation as well. So let’s join Dr. Cameron Chesnut. Dr. Chesnut, welcome back.

Dr. Chesnut: Ah, thank you. Yes. Great to be back again.

Katie: And we had an awesome first episode where you got to really explain all the things you do different in the surgical world, but also on a personal level, how you show up like a top performer, peak athlete, even in the OR and how you train for life in so many different ways, as well as you brought up some fascinating, interesting questions that people can ask before undergoing certain procedures that are very common now. And in this episode, I’m guessing this is not a topic you get to talk about as much, but from our pre-interview due diligence, I’m really excited to delve into with you because in the first episode, you talked about your core value of curiosity and approaching things with curiosity and not just accepting the mainstream answers. And it sounds like you do this to the same operating room greater level when it comes to parenting and how you’re raising your kids and how you’re questioning a lot of the mainstream narrative. I would say like you, I would probably be categorized as a weird parent for all the things I do differently than the norm. But I would love to delve into this with you today because you brought up some of my favorite pet topics of things that sounds like you’re very careful with your kids. And so I would like to kind of delve into your reasoning and the curiosity and questioning that got you to that point. So to start off broad, maybe walk us through what you see as some of the like big issues that are weird that set you apart in the way that you raise your kids.

Dr. Chesnut: Yeah, I mean, I could, it’s funny because we were talking offline about this. This is going to be very raw because you’re right. This isn’t something I talk about very often, but, in my world, you know, I think about this probably as much or more than I do all the other things I’m used to talking about. So it’ll be kind of fun. And my kids will laugh at this when they hear it.

I have three kiddos ages 10, 8 and 6. That’s a boy and then two girls. And, you know, I was kind of I wrote to you as we were kind of getting about this. I believe that we all have these topics that I kind of joke we have to put on our tinfoil hat to talk about. We sound like crazy people when we talk about them to our contemporaries. But something we maybe feel very strongly about and maybe most of these are in parenting for me. And I believe that some of these hot topics, you know, that you were mentioning that you feel very strongly about, too, a lot of them are related to nutrition. You know, that’s I was a nutrition major as an undergraduate. My mom’s a nutritionist. So I was that kid growing up with the nutritionist mom, right? And, you know, all the rebellion and things that go against it. But I was so grateful for that in the end because it taught me all these invaluable things that, you know, I ended up kind of thinking like, oh, my mom. I did this, you know, 30 some years ago and I’m still utilizing to this day.

But, you know, one of those things being let’s just talk about sugar in general, right? We know all the things that it does with insulin response and how our, our insulin levels, even as children, there’s data to show that sort of our insulin response to children, what can affect sort of our insulin sensitivity as adults, right? So I think about this with them now, like. You know, you go to the party and there’s the cake and the ice cream and the candy and you’re just watching your kids be in this environment where this is sort of like part of the celebration, right? To do this and to kind of hold them back from that or have them understand it’s difficult. That’s what makes you the weird parent. Like, oh, you’re not letting your kid do this. Well, you know, I do let them do it but I try to educate them and they know what the long-term benefit is. And, you know, they didn’t, maybe don’t have the forward thinking enough to understand their long-term insulin sensitivity, but they understand what sugar can do to them now, how it affects their bodies.

And so I, I ultimately, when you’re six, it’s that question of, can you make that decision? You know, can you really kind of comprehend and assimilate that? But for the most part, I give them the autonomy to do it. Nothing is completely, you know, foreign or forbidden, but they sort of understand as they’re cooking along, you know, what this is in our, in our home, it’s kind of this common thing. Like, you know, protein is king. They all know that, you know, that’s the, that’s what our meals should be centered around. And on my Christmas card that my son made me this year, he drew a little guy surfing with muscles and said, protein is king on his chest. Kind of this funny, like they, they know it inside out.

And, you know, seed oils would be another one that, you know, we could get into and talk about, like my mom, when I was a kid back to the nutritionist, we’re talking in the eighties used to tell me all that used to be used in the motor industry and the car industry for, you know, engine lubricants, which is, you know, as a kid, I thought my mom was crazy, but that’s so true. And, and so she, when I, even as a kid back then was like, we’re not, we don’t need those. We’re not going to do that. And now understanding, you know, flash forward into the, you know, 30, 40 years later, we know what was happening with those. We know what those do to our body, the inflammatory states that they create.

And it’s very interesting in my field with healing a wound. When we talk about the omega-6 to the omega-3 fatty acid ratios, and this gets way into the weeds scientifically, but I see this in wound healing. We know that we can put an omega-3 fatty acid from like salmon skin, just salmon skin on a wound that won’t heal. And changing that inflammatory profile inside of the wound on the surface of it will help the wound heal that’s been sort of in this chronic inflammatory state. That’s just changing the omega-6 to the omega-3 fatty acid ratio. So that gets very into my weird science-y world. But when you apply that to just life and eating with your kids, you know like, well, that same internal inflammation is happening if we’re kind of adjusting our diet in that sort of like suboptimal fatty acid ratios. We need to get that back to normal because we’re clearly built to heal and operate better in those sort of inflammatory or anti-inflammatory states with these types of seed oils. So I feel like I could talk about the nutritional aspects of that for a long, long time. But I think that’s very similar with you, correct?

Katie: Absolutely. And I’m totally going to adopt your protein is king statement. I feel like for kids, that’s probably so easy to remember and something we focus on as well. In fact, we even have reminders set up in our house for the athlete, my kids who are athletes, like, hey, it’s time to eat protein. So they actually get enough throughout the day to recover from the workouts they’re doing. But I love your approach to this. And it seems like you have also managed to figure out how to thread that very fine line between not wanting to regulate, like it sounds like you educate instead of regulate, where you’re not externally enforcing this with an iron fist, but you’re really doing the work to educate them and support them and making good decisions, but also maybe giving them the leeway to occasionally make a bad decision and get to feel the consequences of that bad decision. That way, because I know I’ve seen kids, and I was this a little bit as well with my mom being interested in nutrition, was I went through a rebellious phase strictly because those things were forbidden. So with my kids, I was trying to figure out how do I educate them, respect their autonomy, trust that they’re very capable of understanding and not give them so much external regulation that they have something to rebel against, but it sounds like you’ve figured out that balance with your kids.

Dr. Chesnut: I mean, Katie, we’re all figuring it out, right? Nobody knows what they’re doing. I always love to look back and laugh on this. Like, hey, we had no idea what we were doing when we had kids. You know, you think that you’re ready and you just learn so much as you go. And, you know, they give you grace and you give them grace. It’s this wonderful thing, but we’re trying to figure it out, right? You’re trying to, and it’s different. Like I’ve never had a 10-year-old until I had a 10-year-old. And so, you know, you’re trying to say, well, what’s different at 10 than it was at 6. And, you know, it’s just, it’s a lot to navigate, but it applies to a lot.

And I’ve always tried to adopt this, idea of, you know, they will emulate what they see. Cause we see that very, you know, very distinctly with so many things that you’re like, oh, they’re doing that cause I do it. And so I think that there’s different lag times with a lot of those, like how long it takes them to understand. But I’ve really just kind of stuck with that idea of like, okay, I’m going to do what’s right. I’m going to do make good decisions in front of them. I’m going to let them see this. I’m going to talk about it. And then ultimately I’m going to let them come to this conclusion that this is what they want to do as well. And that relates to activity and fitness and mindset and kindness and food and all of those things. And it seems to, seems to be working fingers crossed so far. It’ll stay there.

Katie: Yeah, you’re right. It’s like every age, we’ve never had a kid that age before. And even if we figure out one kid at that age, the next kid at the same age is going to be their own infinite autonomous human with a whole new set of ways to interact with them. But I think what you’re saying is so spot on. And I’ve noticed this, especially with my older kids, the younger ones still will ask a lot of questions or sometimes not want to avoid sugar at a birthday party or whatever the case may be. But the older ones have taken ownership of it. And my daughter recently at a high school track practice was getting made fun of because she’d never had McDonald’s. And her friends were like, oh, do you have like really controlling parents? And she was like, no, I just think it’s disgusting. And so to see her like take ownership of it, I was like, it got to be her decision, not something that I’m forcing on her.

I would love to go a little deeper on the vegetable oil, seed oil topic as well, because anytime I get a chance to get on the soapbox for this one, I love to take that chance because I think like you said, this is something that was a waste product of a different industry that was not in the human diet and now is in really high amounts in the human diet, especially in kids. So can you just walk us through, especially on the inflammatory side, because that lines up with surgery and everything you do as well, but why this is so problematic?

Dr. Chesnut: Yeah. Well, you know, as you’re saying, going back to a waste product, you know, the oils themselves, you know, we know why they’re used in the first place. They have great smoke points for cooking and things like that. But when we really get into sort of what I talked about before with that wound healing profile or the wound healing issues is that we know that these chronic inflammatory states involve certain fatty acid ratios. And those tend to mimic quite well what’s happening with the seed oils, right? So they’re they’re putting us into that sort of chronic inflammatory state. We’re not meant to live there. We’re not meant to have that sort of ratio of these fatty acids coming in. And so that’s where you can, you know, they’re difficult to avoid, right? I just almost assume that if I see something in a package, it’s going to have seed oils in it, right? And there’s different ones that carry different sort of weights of difficulty, but I just make that assumption off the get-go.

And so for most parents listening to this. They’re not able or they’re not giving their kids, you know, a zero packaged food type of diet. That’s prohibitively difficult. And so just kind of making that assumption, it’s not always true. You can find good brands and good things that don’t have it in there. But for the most part, you know, when you’re making that assumption, what I see is the balance of thinking, okay, are we making sure that in addition to hopefully getting as little or as few seed oils as possible, that they’re getting the good oils that we do want? These are the omega-3s. These are the fish-based oils, right? And whether that is just from their diet or from a supplement, like we know that even like neural development really relies on these omega-3s. So for our kids, kind of growing up through, you know, that’s an important like supplement or multivitamin for them to be on. If you could only pick a couple, that’s probably going to be in your top group. And so it can offset some of the inflammatory issues that are happening with seed oils almost inevitably, because again, everywhere that your kids go, whether you’re there or not, they’re going to be exposed to them. They’re going to be getting them. And, you know, it’s a way to sort of balance this inflammatory profile from these fatty acids, just making sure that, okay, if you can’t eliminate one all the way, make sure they’re getting enough of the other one.

Katie: Yeah, I think that alone is, for me, part of the 80-20. And it’ll make a big difference, especially if you have any kind of chronic inflammation. So I love that we got to delve into that one. And it sounds like another area that you maybe deviate from the norm on is the topic of EMFs and how you handle this with your family. And this is another area I love to talk about anytime, given the chance. Because again, this is a new stimulus that didn’t used to exist that humans interacted with and that now is everywhere. So seeing as how technology is not going anywhere, and most kids are on devices constantly, how do you manage this in your house?

Dr. Chesnut: Yeah, this is a really great one. And this was, this one was, one where I probably became a believer. This is like, you know, I’m very intellectually curious, but I’m also quite skeptical. And I believe that those two things work together quite well to sort of kind of sift things through. And so, you know, as you hear and understand what EMFs are and that we’re surrounded by them all the time, you know, it kind of piques a little bit of interest. And for my son in our home, he was sort of the closest to like our media area, like all of the electronics in our house. He was the closest bedroom. And so I just started getting curious a little bit. Like, I wonder as he’s growing up and his little brain is developing, you know, what if that’s like making any difference on him?

So I just went on Amazon and bought an EMF meter, like just, you know, basic, very simple. And I started taking it through our house. And if you ever do this in your home, your eyes will be opened as to like, oh, my gosh, where is the EMF coming from? Your inductive chargers that are right next to your bed when you’re sleeping near your head, like I’m putting out a ton of EMF. Your chargers, your phone at different settings, whether the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth are on or off, all of these things are constantly getting exposure to us. And throughout the day, we’re not going to avoid these. We’re all sitting in it right now as we’re watching this, but at nighttime, and those stresses are on our whole body, our immune system, our nervous system, we’re getting them, but we can recover if we get some respite. If we get a break from them, we can recover from those, just like from sitting in the sauna or from exercising. These little stressors that we put on our body, we’re able to recover from, but if you exercise all day long or sit in the sauna all day long, it becomes bad for you at that point. You can’t recover from that anymore.

So I kind of took this approach to EMF quite the same way, like, okay, well, we’re getting them. They’re all over your house. They’re all over your life. What can you do to get away from them at night? And so my family, we sleep in EMF tents, which this is quite literally one of those tinfoil hat conversations because now they’re sleeping in an EMF tent. Quite a literal translation to that. And for my wife and I, we have a four-poster bed. It sits over the top. It’s kind of like a sexy little adjunct to our bed. But undoubtedly, when you’re inside of it, if you take your EMF meter in there or if you take your phone in there, you can’t connect to your Wi-Fi anymore. It doesn’t get through it or the EMF meter shuts down.

And so I started, I got these for my family. All of my kids sleep in it. My wife and I sleep in it. And the most interesting thing for me was that my sleep metrics, again, I track them very closely for every procedure for every day, my sleep metrics improved dramatically, especially my heart rate variability, which is the best sort of like indicator of what’s happening in our nervous system. How well is your nervous system recovering? And I saw that when I was in my EMF tent at night, my heart rate variability was significantly higher with no other explanation to that whatsoever. And I had only seen that prior when I would sleep basically out in the woods, like in a cabin or a tent where there’s no Wi-Fi, no cell service. I noticed that my HRV numbers would be much, much higher, even in really uncomfortable beds or sleeping on the floor. It wasn’t because I was sleeping better. It’s just because my nervous system was recovering better. So I saw those same types of numbers happening in my home by just sleeping in this EMF tent. So I don’t sell them. I have no affiliation, anything like that, but they’ve certainly made a difference to sort of how I, how my nervous system recovers at night afterwards. And I’m really glad to have my kids in them as their brains are developing.

Katie: That’s so awesome that you saw such a big change from that. And I feel like you’re right. This is an area where a lot of people either ignore EMFs or think they can’t immediately feel the result of them. It’s not that big of a deal. But much like you, I take the approach of, at the very least, if we can reduce or eliminate them while we’re sleeping, we’re not using the Wi-Fi anyway while we’re sleeping. So why not just reduce our exposure, let our body do its deep regeneration processes while we’re sleeping without that added input? And like you said, there are so many simple ways to do this now, whether it’s digital timers that take things down. The EMF tents, I feel like if they’re available, it’s an awesome option as well. But I love that you had such a profound effect. And to find a doctor who, it sounds like you’re multiple board certified, who understands so deeply vegetable oils and EMFs and all of this, I feel like you’re a rare unicorn in the world. So I’m so glad you’re talking about these things as well.

What about, I know you mentioned already modeling, and I believe very strongly that what we show our kids carries much more weight than what we tell our kids. And from our first episode, you have an incredible personal routine for all the things you do to stay healthy, and to show up at peak performance. But I’m curious if there’s anything else you do with your kids to help them integrate these habits beyond modeling them, whether it’s the education side, whether it’s family culture that you build in, or how you’re giving them a really solid foundation from day one.

Dr. Chesnut: Yeah, I think that this sort of happens organically in a lot of different ways. You know, I think the earliest thing that I did was exercise or play with them, you know, quite literally. Or my exercise after work would be, you know, using them for, you know, they would call throw it in the beanbag. We have beanbags in our upstairs and I would quite literally pick them up and carry them around and throw them in there, which for me is like doing farmer’s carries and, you know, quite a sweaty workout. But for them is their favorite game in the whole world, right? And so we would do that or literally using them as kettlebells and doing Turkish get-ups with them attached to my arm. So all these really fun things for them that were play based exercise, in the summertime, you know, setting up obstacle courses outside, which are really just, you know, speed ladders and cones. You know, like what you might do if you’re a professional athlete training but using that for sort of the fun. And I think that was like the earliest types of modeling that we had.

And as they’ve gotten older and more sort of aware and into it, we do, you know, goal setting quarterly. And that’s very different at six versus eight versus 10 years old. What are their goals? We try to break it into personal goals, school goals, and then, you know, outside sports or whatever it may be for them. And they write it down on a whiteboard and they see it every day. And we reference them and they’re very simple. Be kind, you know, practice every day, whatever they want it to be. And we might help guide them through it. But ultimately, they set those goals. And, you know, they when they see it every day, it tends to hold them a little bit more accountable. And I do that quite literally every quarter as well, I revisit my goals, my missions, my objectives for personal, for family, for my career. And I, you know, I’m doing this with them now instead of doing it just by myself. And, you know, those are those little types of modeling things that I think, again, just organically happen. And if you I think it’s just being aware and grateful for them, really, because we all every parent does this. It’s just sort of being like, oh, that’s this is what I’m doing right now. How can I sort of optimize this time and use it to, like, get on to the next version of, sort of what you might want to steer them towards a little bit of them, let them discover it themselves.

Katie: I love that. And it sounds like you also have a cool approach when it comes to sort of that distinction between helicopter parenting, which has been talked about a lot in the modern world versus other methods that you employ. And I would love to hear about that, especially as a follow up to your quote from the first episode, I believe something along the lines of comfort being a slow death. And that line as parents of not wanting, obviously, to make our children’s lives tough on purpose, but also letting them experience discomfort in ways that leads to growth. So how do you handle that with your kids at different ages?

Dr. Chesnut: Yeah. I mean, this is a really great, I have a water, all of my kids have these cool little water bottles that we put little phrases for them on. And mine says, comfort is a slow death, prefer pain. And my kids know that inside out. And they’re, they’re very, you know, versed at being comfortable or being uncomfortable, whether that’s, you know, getting, they see me getting in an ice bath every single day and they want to try it and do it.

And so I heard this quote, and I wish I could, you know, say who it was, but it’s, you know, don’t prepare the path for your child, prepare your child for the path, right? And I love that idea. And so that’s what we’re all trying to do. And we’ve all heard of the helicopter parenting idea. But I heard this new recent term that just probably old but was very profound to me that instead of helicopter parenting, now people are snowplow parenting. They’re trying to plow the road. And I was like, oh, that’s just like, you know, preparing the path for your child. And we want to be doing the opposite. You know, you’re not going to be able to protect him from everything in life. Discomforts are, my kids know this inside out, discomforts are opportunities for growth. That’s how they get stronger. And so not that we’re seeking them like blatantly, but when the opportunities to grow arise, I’m trying to make my kids not afraid of those things.

And so, you know, I’m trying to, again, prepare them for that path, not be a snowplow, but just understand like, hey, if you want to plow this road yourself, or if you want to trudge through the snow, let’s experiment with what these look like. And you can see what you like better and you can figure out your best solution to it, but I’m not going to plow it for you. You’re going to have to, you know, kind of experiment with these. And again, there’s age-appropriate levels to all of this. You know, my six-year-old dips her foot in the ice bath and I’m just, oh, it’s good job. You did it. You got tougher. You did something difficult, you know, or my 10-year-old’s going all the way underwater, whatever it may be. You know, every day is different, right? Their willpower is quite variable, just like ours. And, you know, they’re building up. There’s a portion of our brain, and we get into the neuroscience of it is their willpower. It’s called the mid-cingulate cortex. The anterior portion of the mid-cingulate cortex. We want that to get stronger and bigger in them. That’s that discomfort. Like, if they can endure that and, you know, they can build the resilience and build the composure and all those things that we want them to have.

Katie: I really like your approach. And with my kids, I take a similar one in that my non-negotiable parenting sort of framework centers on the idea that they are each their own infinite autonomous human and that I don’t want to disrespect their autonomy by making things too easy for them or giving them a false idea of what the world looks like or by taking away things that they can own and actually do on their own. And so I try to never do things for them once they’re capable of doing it themselves, with the exception of I’ll braid my daughter’s hair, even though she can do it herself, because it’s a chance to connect with her. But for the most part, I feel like it’s an insult to them to do things for them once they’re capable because what I’m saying, I’m telling them they’re capable, but I’m showing them that they’re not by doing it for them. And so I love that you seem to have that same mentality of like, I’m not going to go out of my way to make their life uncomfortable, but I’m also not going to save them from the normal parts of life that come with a little bit of discomfort because I can look back in my own life and see those moments led to the most growth for me. So why would I take those away from my kids, even though it’s hard to see them go through the hard things?

Dr. Chesnut: Absolutely. And I think for a lot of people, that realization comes when you understand that a lot of the things you’re doing are for your comfort. You’re tying their shoes for them early on because you want to get out the door faster or it’s painful to watch them go through it. And you’re impatient to do it. And you’re you’re taking like you just said, you’re taking away those even at a very basic level. You’re taking away those opportunities for growth from them. And so, you know, I think once we kind of once you get that like realization and mindset, they’re like, okay, you know, it’s hard to watch them struggle as a parent. There’s that primal part of you that just wants to protect them and cuddle them and, you know, ease that sort of neural stress on them. But that neural stress is how they grow, right? And I think it’s just having those awarenesses together and sort of understanding when it’s appropriate. And so it sounds like you’ve nailed that through all the age spectrums. I’m still figuring it out as I go along.

Katie: Well, to be determined, but I appreciate that. And I love so much that you are willing to deviate from the things you normally get to talk about and talk about parenting, because I feel like for anybody who’s a parent, which is almost everybody listening, of all the other things that we do, this is the thing that is the most important. And those are some of our most important relationships in our life. And I’m so grateful that you are willing to talk about a topic that’s not on your normal list for podcasts, most likely. But I know you also do a whole lot in the medical world. You can work with people directly and have a very novel approach to that, like we talked about in our first episode. So where can people find you to keep learning on that side or to connect with you if they want to work with you?

Dr. Chesnut: Absolutely. Yeah. My social media, Instagram is one of the best sources. TikTok also. And then a little bit on Facebook that, you know, my chesnut.md, no T in the middle of Chesnut. And my Instagram is very much around my practice. There are definitely parenting bits mixed into there. There’s mindset and peak performance. But a lot of it is just before and after photos. That’s what my practice is built on. My patients travel to see me from all over the world in a very frictionless process that we have to sort of achieve these optimal results, give a very good recovery experience.

And again, that for me is very like patient centered as far as like educating about all the different things you could want to know. So if you know nothing, it’s a great place to start. You’ll dive into all kinds of topics. If you’re very versed already, you’ll love it even more. And then I do quite a bit towards my colleagues. A good part of my audience is colleagues who follow along. They’re parents, too. They’re surgeons and parents. And they want to be optimized in the operating room as they’re performing. And they want to be optimized at home. A lot of what you’ll hear from parenting for me is actually probably geared more towards my surgical colleagues who also have families and are balancing these very unique stressors and very unique situations of time management and being a surgeon at peak performance and then also being a soft dad when you go home to your kids. And so anyway, it’ll be fun, I think, for people to kind of follow along and see those differences.

Katie: Well, I now follow you and I’ve been enjoying it and I’ll make sure all those links are in the show notes for you guys listening on the go. That’s always at wellnessmama.com. But thank you so much for this conversation. This has been such a fun chance to get to talk parenting with someone who is also balancing so much in life and seemingly doing wonderful in all areas. I really appreciate your vulnerability and talking on the parenting side and all the work that you do in the world.

Dr. Chesnut: Yeah, Katie, thank you very much. I’m really grateful to be here. Thank you.

Katie: And thank you as always for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.