Ep 1162 | SkinnyTok, the iPad Pacifier & Paula White’s New Scam

Summary

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey – Episode 1162 Summary
Title: SkinnyTok, the iPad Pacifier & Paula White’s New Scam
Release Date: March 27, 2025
Host: Blaze Podcast Network

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1. Paula White’s Latest Scam

In this segment, Allie Beth Stuckey delves into the controversial actions of Paula White, a prosperity preacher and spiritual advisor to former President Trump. Allie critiques Paula White's recent promotional efforts, highlighting her departure from biblical principles.

Paula White’s Prosperity Gospel Claims:
Allie expresses deep concern over Paula White’s propagation of the prosperity gospel, which she views as heretical. She references Paula White’s recent commercial where she promises seven supernatural blessings to those who honor God during Passover by making a $1,000 offering.

“I want Paula White to repent of the false prosperity gospel that she not only believed herself, but also that she has propagated to millions of people around the world for many years.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (04:39)

Scriptural Misinterpretations:
Allie scrutinizes Paula White’s use of Exodus 23 to justify her claims, asserting that Paula misapplies Old Testament laws to modern Christian life. She emphasizes that Jesus fulfilled the ceremonial laws, making such prosperity promises obsolete for contemporary believers.

“Jesus has become our cleansing. He has become what sets us apart. That is why Christians today don't do all of the things, things that the ancient Israelites did.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (05:09)

Consequences of the Prosperity Gospel:
Allie warns that teachings like Paula White’s can lead believers astray, fostering a transactional view of faith that equates financial offerings with divine blessings. She warns both Paula White and her followers of the spiritual dangers inherent in these practices.

“These are heretical teachings that lead straight to hell. But the gospel of Jesus, the truth that he is enough for us, that he is our contentment and salvation and satisfaction that will really set you free.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (09:20)

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2. Technology Addiction Among Children

Allie shifts focus to the growing issue of technology addiction in young children, referencing insights from psychologist Jonathan Haidt and recent statistics that underscore the severity of the problem.

Alarming Statistics:
Citing a report from the Common Sense Census, Allie highlights that by age 2, 40% of children have their own tablet, and by age 4, this number rises to 60%. By age 8, 1 in 4 children owns a smartphone, with 80% of these being smart devices capable of internet access.

“By age 8, 1 in 4 children have their own cell phone. Now that is wild to me.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (23:10)

Impact on Child Development:
Allie discusses how excessive screen time hampers children’s ability to develop critical skills such as attention span, emotional regulation, and patience. She shares personal experiences, noting the challenges of managing her child’s screen use and the broader cultural acceptance of digital pacifiers.

“They are creating an addiction. It is important for kids to be bored.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (28:50)

Parental Challenges:
Addressing the struggles parents face, Allie acknowledges the difficulty of enforcing screen time limits amidst their own distractions and overstimulation. She emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries to foster healthier developmental environments for children.

“Much of the gentle parenting movement has told parents that big feelings just kind of have to be validated, that you can't tell your child no.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (30:05)

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3. SkinnyTok: A Dangerous TikTok Trend

The episode culminates with a discussion on “SkinnyTok,” a troubling trend on TikTok that promotes unhealthy body standards and disordered eating behaviors among young women. Allie is joined by Phoenix, a Gen Z guest, who provides firsthand insights into the phenomenon.

Understanding SkinnyTok:
Allie and Phoenix explore how SkinnyTok influencers advocate for extreme portion control and calorie restriction under the guise of promoting discipline and healthy living. They critique the movement’s underlying messages that equate thinness with moral and personal success.

“Skinny talk is essentially this whole genre of TikTok where these influencers... are promoting unhealthy behaviors.”
— Phoenix (46:04)

Psychological Implications:
The hosts and guest discuss the psychological toll of SkinnyTok, noting how it fosters obsession, low self-esteem, and eating disorders. Allie shares her personal battle with restrictive eating, underscoring the real dangers these online messages pose.

“That is not discipline. That is a disorder.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (50:36)

Cultural Backlash and Body Positivity:
Allie acknowledges that SkinnyTok is, in part, a reactionary move against the body positivity movement. However, she argues that both extremes—overemphasis on body acceptance and the glorification of thinness—are detrimental, advocating instead for a balanced approach to health and body image.

“We should not be looking to social media or cultural trends to judge whether or not our body is healthy.”
— Allie Beth Stuckey (59:52)

Solutions and Parental Guidance:
The discussion emphasizes the role of parents and educators in countering SkinnyTok by promoting healthy habits, encouraging self-confidence, and setting realistic body image expectations for children. Allie urges vigilance and proactive measures to protect young minds from these harmful influences.

“You are not a dog, don't reward yourself with food.”
— Liv Schmidt (51:32)

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Key Takeaways:

1. Biblical Integrity in Ministry:
   Allie stresses the necessity for Christian leaders to adhere strictly to biblical teachings, condemning prosperity gospel practices that distort scriptural truths.

2. Managing Technology Use:
   The episode highlights the urgent need to regulate children's screen time to prevent addiction and promote healthier cognitive and emotional development.

3. Combatting Harmful Social Media Trends:
   SkinnyTok represents a dangerous trend that undermines body positivity by promoting unhealthy dieting practices. Allie and her guest advocate for balanced, health-focused body image education.

4. Parental Responsibility:
   Effective parenting involves setting boundaries, encouraging resilience, and fostering environments where children can develop independence and self-regulation without overreliance on digital distractions.

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Conclusion:

Episode 1162 of "Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey" offers a critical examination of contemporary issues affecting Christian communities and families. From exposing deceptive prosperity teachings to tackling the pervasive influence of technology and harmful social media trends, Allie provides insightful analysis and practical advice aimed at fostering a healthier, faith-aligned lifestyle. Listeners are encouraged to engage thoughtfully with these topics to navigate the complexities of modern culture while maintaining spiritual integrity and promoting the well-being of future generations.

Transcript

[Ali Stuckey]

Prosperity preacher and Trump advisor Paula White is at it again. Oh my goodness. We've got a biblical response to her latest heresy. Also, Jonathan Height has been posting some very troubling statistics on social media about kids and technology use. How can we solve this problem? Because it is solvable. And then at the end of this episode, we've got a segment on a very troubling trend on Tick Tock called Skinny Talk. What is this and what does it mean for your daughters? We will make sure you parents know what's up and what to do. This episode is brought to you by friends at Good ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com use code ALI at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code ALLY hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. We are almost to Friday. All right. Yesterday when I announced some of the speakers for Share the Arrows, I did not know quite yet. We were almost there, but that Taylor Dukes will be added to the lineup. And so Taylor Dukes is another speaker at Share the Arrows. We're doing something new this year. We are doing a health panel where we will talk about how to live healthy lifestyles both at home, outside of our home, not just physically, materially, but also spiritually and how to balance that because that can be a whole world of legalism in itself. And yet we do understand that we are supposed to steward our bodies as dwelling places for the Holy Spirit. And so we will be having a very rich, interesting discussion about that at Share the Arrows. In addition to having Elisa Childers and Katie Faust, you know, those two are going to bring it. Francesca Battistelli is going to be is going to be leading us in worship yet again. And we also have some other speakers we haven't announced. Also Ginger Volo will be on stage and she will be giving a powerful testimony too. So apologetics, theology training, there will be motherhood, motherhood conversation. Those are the speakers we haven't announced quite yet and just so much. I'm so excited. So make sure you go to share the eras.com and get your tickets if you have not already. All right, Got quite a few things to talk about today. We've got a new fun segment at the end with one of the Gen Z people that work on the show or like work on other shows here at Blaze tv. And she is awesome. She's going to be lending her insight into this TikTok trend that we really need to know about, especially as parents. But first, let's talk some theology. This is about Paula White. Paula White is a spiritual advisor to President Trump. She is now the White House Faith office, White House Faith Office leader. We did a whole episode on Paula White. You can go back and listen to that. Why I think she's extremely problematic. Why I'm concerned about her having this kind of position of influence, even while of course, I continue to hope that the White House is successful in all of its good endeavors and any good goal that even her faith office has that actually is in alignment with scripture, I hope they're effective in accomplishing that. But more than anything, I want Paula White to repent of the false prosperity gospel that she not only believed herself, but also that she has propagated to millions of people around the world for many years. And most recently she did some kind of special or commercial where she encourages her viewers to quote, unquote, honor God during Passover. And in return, they can expect seven special blessings from God, including a personal angel, physical healing and prosperity. And then later in her sermon, and this is very common with these prosperity preachers, she says, you should offer a thousand dollars to me and to my ministry to Paula White and what she is in charge of and she indicates, seems to indicate that these offerings will contribute to the blessing. So here is a clip from her latest commercial special Sat one.

[Paula White]

And I believe that when you honor God on Passover, starting on April 12th at sundown, through Good Friday on the 18th, and concluding on Easter Sunday, you can receive these seven supernatural blessings for you and your house. According to Exodus 23, God will assign an angel to you. He'll be an enemy to your enemies. He'll give you prosperity. He'll take sickness away from you. He will give you long life. He'll bring increase in inheritance and he'll give a special year of blessing for.

[Ali Stuckey]

Your special Passover offering of $1,000 or more. As the Holy Spirit leads, you will also receive the beautiful 10 inch Waterford Crystal Cross. So this was on her YouTube channel. And you might laugh at this and you might think, how could anyone buy into something so gimmicky? But I promise you have people in your life, especially older people who have dwindling savings but who believe this, that sow a seed of faith. That's often the language used. Then God will repay them with some kind of blessing, whether it's a, you know, relationship help or whether it's a promotion at work or whether it's physical healing from one of their ailments. And they put their hope in this, that God is some kind of genie, that if I do this. He will do this. And she claims to be getting this idea from Exodus 23. Exodus 23 is a passage in which Moses is giving instruction and laws to the Israelites about their conduct, about how they are to honor the Sabbath, how they are to celebrate in their festivals. He is also telling them about God's promise to help conquer Canaan. Behold, I sent an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. That's verse 20 of chapter 23. And God goes on to say through Moses, you shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will take sickness away from among you. None shall miscarry or be barren in your land. I will f fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come. And I will make all of your enemies turn their backs on you. So while God is the same, Jesus Christ, who is God, is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We see that in Hebrews 13:8. We can also read in John 1 that New Testament Jesus is God. He is the God that was there in the beginning. Nothing that was made was made without Jesus, without the fullness of this triune God. So there are principles and characteristics of God that we can see in the Old Testament that we know are still true today. But we have to have the discernment, the wisdom to be able to see what was true at a particular time, at a particular place for a particular people, and what is true for us today. And it certainly takes some navigation and some, in some cases, expert interpretation to be able to understand that. But really, it also just takes reading comprehension. Knowing Scripture and reading things in context. We can deduce from this passage that God is a God who cares about how we worship him, that he has certain regulations for his people and that if they honored him, he would do certain things. What we do not see is that these exact instructions apply to Christians today and guarantee us those same blessings. Because, see, Jesus has become our cleansing. He has become what sets us apart. That is why Christians today don't do all of the things, things that the ancient Israelites did. Because we don't have to follow the ceremonial laws anymore. Because Jesus became our sacrifice. He became our ceremonial cleansing. He became the fulfillment of the promise. And so while these people are going towards the promised land, that was really just a foreshadowing, a precursor of what God's people, through Christ were, will get one day because of Jesus's sacrifice on our behalf, and that is eternity with him in heaven, in the new heavens and the new earth. And so this is not a passage that we can apply directly to the Christian life today because this was for a particular people at a particular time. Again, we can apply some principles, characteristics of God to today, but we cannot apply all of these detail to details to the lives of Christians today. I think that's obvious. Like if you walked around a city with a wall seven days in a row, that wall isn't necessarily going to fall down like the walls of Jericho did. We have to be able to read with discernment and pray for the wisdom that James 5 guarantees us if we ask for it. And as soon as I saw this video, which is just absolutely money grabbing, it's about selfishness, it's about self enrichment, which is just absolutely evil, will not only lead those who propagate this to hell, but it will also lead those who believe this kind of prosperity gospel to hell. I thought of Galatians 2:16 and really how this is. It's not just convincing people that giving money is going to guarantee something in return, but it's also trying to enslave people to the law that if you do this, if you follow all these stipulations and regulations, honor the Passover. I mean, Christians don't even talk like that. But if you honor the Passover the way that the Jews do, or the Jews did, then God will do all of these things for you. I'm reminded of Galatians and Paul in the book of Galatians really does not want these Christian converts to believe that in order to be good Christians, they continue they have to follow the Jewish Law, Galatians 2:16. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Because by the works of the law no one will be justified. Do you hear that? You will not be justified by works of the law. You will not be justified before God. Made clean, made worthy, made right before God because you honor the Passover the way the Old Testament says that the ancient Israelites did. Now that does not mean that we should not obey God. That doesn't mean that God has no rules for us. Of course he does. We see that throughout Scripture we still abide by the moral law that we see in the Old Testament because Jesus doubled down on the moral law, whereas he fulfilled the ceremonial law by becoming Our cleansing. When it came to the moral law, he didn't say, okay, we don't believe that anymore. He actually said, okay, you have heard it said that you shouldn't murder anyone. But I say to you, if you hate someone in your heart, that's similar to murder. So he didn't do away with that law. He actually said, it's not just about your actions, it's about your heart. Which we read throughout Scripture, especially in Galatians, that that starts with faith, and it is by grace, through faith that someone is justified, not by the works of the law. So be freed by that. I also read, just in light of the whole prosperity gospel, that if you do this, then God, like a genie, will do this for you. Philippians 4:12 through 13. Most of us who grew up in the church, we probably had some kind of, like, soccer jersey that said Philippians 4:13 on it. But context, it's really a lot more beautiful than if you pray to God, then he will help you score a soccer goal. Verse 12. I have learned in whatever situation. Actually, that's verse 11. I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. Paul says, in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So that's the prize. And the book of Philippians beautifully lays this out, especially in the first chapter of Philippians, that Christ is the prize. To live is Christ and to die is gain. That in whatever circumstance we have, when things are really hard, when we are going without, when it feels like nothing will ever get better, and when things are really good and really easy and really abundant, the prize, the satisfaction, is Christ himself. If Christ never did anything else for us, if God never gave us any other material blessing, and all he had ever done for us was send his Son to die for us and defeat death on the third day. That would be enough to say, hallelujah, praise the Lord, God is good. And then I thought of John 9 as I was reading this passage the other day, and it made me think of my conversation with Costihen. And we'll link that if you haven't listened to it. But he talks so poignantly about the dangers of the prosperity gospel and the beauty of the real gospel. And then a few days later, I was reading this passage. This is verse 1 through 3 of John 9. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and his disciples asked him Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. And then God heals him. Jesus heals him right there. And this man goes on praising God and telling people the testimony of his healing. And there, you see the works of the power of God are being displayed in his testimony. And so Jesus is saying he is not being punished because of his own sin or the sin of his ancestors. And what I'm about to do is not a reward for good deeds. This is for the glory of God. And we can remember that in our own difficulty, in our own sickness, because the prosperity gospel will make you think that you have done something wrong. And that is why you or your child is going through something hard. You have some kind of unconfessed sin. Or maybe you didn't trust God enough, or maybe you didn't pray hard enough. But we hear from Jesus that in this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world again. Christ is the prize. And so remember this whenever you hear these peddlers of the prosperity gospel. Cause I hear people say, well, they've done good. They have this many people in their congregations. Look at how many followers they have. Look at how close she is to power to President Trump. Maybe we shouldn't criticize her. They must be doing something right. Do not use worldly indicators of favor as a test for someone's obedience. People who might look like they are failing by the world standards. They're obscure. They don't have any followers. They don't have any fame. They don't have any fortune. They might be the most successful in God's sight simply because of their unseen, unseen song. Obedience and courage in following the Lord. So pray for Paula White, but pray for every single person that has ever listened to her and believed her. These are heretical teachings that lead straight to hell. But the gospel of Jesus, the truth that he is enough for us, that he is our contentment and salvation and satisfaction that will really set you free. All right, we've got another story I wanted to get to today. Let me pause and tell you about our sponsor for the day, our first one. That's Seven Weeks Coffee. Seven Weeks is America's Pro Life Coffee Company. They are on a mission to fund the Pro Life movement one cup of coffee at a time. They've done just that. They've raised almost a million dollars. You guys, because of you. Because all of you are buying seven weeks coffee. They have donated over $800,000 for pregnancy centers across the country. So many ultrasounds, so many free baby items, parenting classes, all of the resources that these incredible pregnancy centers are offering to these moms and dads in need that help these women feel not alone and choose life. So many ultrasounds where the mom hears the beating heart, sees that baby on the ultrasound, chooses life for her child. Because you are buying coffee from Seven Weeks Coffee and they donate 10% of every sale to these pregnancy centers. It's just incredible. They're called seven weeks because at seven weeks gestation, that baby inside the womb was just the size of a coffee bean with his or her own DNA made in the image of God. Right now, if you subscribe to seven Weeks Coffee, get that box of coffee to your front door every month. You'll receive a free limited edition lint tote. Pray, fast and drink seven weeks coffee. So cute. Go to seven weeks coffee.com use code ally for an extra 10% off seven weeks coffee. Code ally. All right, what I'm about to talk about is not a new story and it's not even a new post. I saw the post just the other day and I realized that it had been posted actually a couple weeks ago by Jonathan Height. And most of you know who he is because he is the author of the best selling book the Anxious Generation. I mean, this has been on the New York Times bestseller list, I don't know. I think for over a year at this point. At least. Maybe years. I mean, parents are just eating this information up because we all have this feeling that, okay, something is wrong, something might be wrong with us, something might be wrong with our parents generation. Something's definitely wrong with the younger generations. And that problem is that everyone's really anxious. Everyone's really overstimulated. We don't have an attention span. We're not satisfied with simple pleasures anymore. We seem dumber than we used to be. We can't work as hard anymore. We can't stay on task. And no one seems happier. Why? We have all of these wonderful luxuries. We have access to the best and easiest things in the world that make life fun and make life easy. And yet everyone seems really unhappy and really on edge. And so he wrote this book called the Anxious Generation, which talks about a lot of things, but he focuses on the detriment of technology to our kids and the negative impact that technology addiction is having on these developing minds. And it is way more prevalent than we think. My kids, my oldest is almost six. And so I see a lot of other kids, you know my, my kids age and I did not realize how, how pervasive this addiction to technology is. And I'm not just talking about tv, maybe that was it when we were young. But I'm talking about kids my kids age that have basically unfettered access to iPads, to tablets, to phones, to video games, to different devices that are objectively making their brains mush. So listen to some of these statistics in this post that I saw on Jonathan Heights Instagram. This is from a report from the Common Sense consensus. Media used by kids 0 to 8. Okay, 0 to 8, that's my kids age age range. Here's what it says. Media used by kids 0 to 8 advances a long running research series. So that's the title of it. A long running research series that examines trends in the media consumption of young children, providing insights into the role that technology plays from the crib to the classroom. The last zero to eight census was conducted in early 2020, just before the COVID pandemic. Which means that this new report offers a unique post pandemic examination of changes in children's media use and habits over this time period. So here are the are the key findings. By age 2, 40% of children have their own tablet. I have an 18 month old, she doesn't know what to do with the tablet. In fact, if I gave her my iPad, she would probably throw it in the fireplace. She, she would, she would definitely break it, have no idea what to do with it. By age 4, more than half of children have their own tablet. 60% of children by age 4 have their own tablet. Now let me say we don't know everything about how often these kids who have their own tablet use it. Okay, so this could be they have their own tablet but their parent lets them use it once a week. They have their own tablet but their parent only allows them to use it on long road trips. Okay, so I will say that we don't know that these all 60% of these children, 100% of these 60% of these children are using their tablets every day. So we can calm down about that. By age 8, 1 and 4 children have their own cell phone. Now that is wild to me. What is an eight year old doing with a cell phone? What is a seven year old doing with a cell phone? Where are they going? They're not going to the mall, they're not going to the movies. What are they doing with a cell phone? How do they even know to have a cell phone? Among children who have their own phones, 80% have a smartphone that can go online, use apps and play videos. Guys, I have a hard time having self control with this device and stopping myself from scrolling and just going down the rabbit hole of different posts and different videos. And I am a full fledged frontal lobe who understands time, who understands consequences, and still this thing can get the better of me. I just can't imagine a child with an undeveloped brain being able or being expected to stop themselves. Not just when it comes to time, but what they are seeing. They don't even know that what they will click on could lead them to watch pornography or see something disturbing that is going to be seared into their memory or give them nightmares. They just don't know. 19% of those 1 in 4 children under 8 who have their own cell phone have, you know, kind of like a dumb phone and only 3% have like an absolute dumb phone. So vast majority of those kids 0 to 8 that have a phone have an iPhone. Overall, 51% of children age 8 and younger have their own mobile device of some kind. About 1 in 5 children under age 8 use mobile devices for emotional regulation, meal times or to fall asleep. 23% use screens while eating, eating at home. Excuse me, 23%. 20% watch or play on a device every night or most nights to fall asleep. I'm not talking about 13 year olds again, I'm talking about 6 year olds here. I mean this just absolutely breaks my heart and I am, by no means am I saying that my husband and I are perfect parents or that we have never made a mistake or we've never had to. Course, correct. Of course. Every single parent has different challenges, different things that they have just done excellently and different things that they have not done well. And maybe you're a parent who you were making this mistake and you realized the bad effect this was having on your family and you said okay, like we're not going to do that anymore. And I really respect that. But just imagine what you are doing to the mind of a child who is dependent upon a personal device to stop crying, to be patient, to quell boredom, or to fall asleep. You are creating an addiction. It is important for kids and Jonathan Haidt talks about this a lot. It is important for kids to be bored. Trust me, I know like how aggravating it is when your child who has all these toys and so many fun things to do, a playset in the backyard tells you that they're bored. What I have found. And here's the thing. Is that this is hard. And that's what I think a lot of parents are avoiding. They want to avoid the hard parts of parenting, the parts that take like work and patience and self control. And again, imperfect person here saying all of this, and I'm saying this from experience, that when I get through the initial annoyance of hearing my children say that they're bored and I simply don't change anything, I don't turn on the tv, I don't give them anything, they will find something to do. Now sometimes I have to sacrifice like clean clothes for that. There something to do. Might be going to play with the water hose outside side and getting themselves messy and I might have to be okay with that. But again, that is accepting that the right thing to do in most situations in parenting is the harder thing to do. That's. That is honestly what I think is happening here is that a lot of parents, and we have all been there, they simply don't want to do the thing that takes longer. They don't want to do the thing that takes more patience and that takes more self control. Because parents ourselves are overstimulated. We are therefore distracted. And I know from experience that when I'm plugged in on my phone or I'm plugged in working or doing something and something tries to snap me out of that focus, I'm irritable. My first reaction is irritation. And if parents are constantly distracted by technology and we are constantly feeling like, okay, if we have one more thing that makes a sound around us, we're going to snap because we ourselves are overstimulated, then of course that's going to lead parents to say just turn, just turn on the iPad. Fine, just do it. They don't want to deal with the temper tantrum. They don't want to discipline. Much of the gentle parenting movement has told parents that big feelings just kind of have to be validated, that you can't tell your child no, you can't take things away, you can't put them in timeout, you can't enforce rules. You can't actually have an enforcement of boundaries. And so a lot of parents are unequipped. But I think a lot of parents, to be honest, are just lazy and tired and distracted and overstimulated. And it is nice for these parents to be able to give their child a pacifier because dealing with the big emotions that you've been told are just perfectly acceptable is really hard. Again, speaking as a fallible person and an imperfect parent myself, this is what I see as a Parent. But this is also just what I see by looking at culture, that it's really more than anything a parent problem, not a kid problem. And I've got some more evidence of that in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor, and that is Masa chips. You guys, I love masa chips. They're really good. They're really healthy for you because they don't have any of the canola oil or the inflammatory seed oils. They just have beef tallow. They which has like vitamin K and D and E and all of these things that are really good for your skin. They've got organic corn and they've got Redmond sea salt. 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All right. I saw a couple videos in light of all of this that I wanted to play today that I think will spark a discussion and just make you think about this not just from the parent perspective, but also from a teacher perspective. Now, I don't know who this person is. I saw their video. It looked like it was going viral on Instagram, so a lot of people related to it. All the comments that I read were agreeing with this teacher. Both teachers and parents and people who work with kids in different capacities. I am sure this person and I don't align on a lot of things. In fact, I've seen her say some, like, progressive things. But it seems to me like she's a teacher who cares, and she's spot on in this assessment. From my perspective, here's thought to.

[Jonathan Haidt]

So here is exactly what it's like right now working in public education. First of all, the kids have no ability to be bored whatsoever. They live on their phones, and they're just fed a constant stream of dopamine from the minute their eyes wake up in the morning until they go to sleep at night because they're in a constant state of dopamine withdrawal at school. They behave like addicts. They're super emotional. Like the smallest thing sets them off. And when you are standing in front of them trying to teach, they're vacant. They have no ability to tune in if your communication isn't packaged in short little clips. And they have a level of apathy that I've never seen before in my whole career. Punishments don't work because they don't care about them. They don't care about grades, they don't care about college. It's like you are interacting with them briefly in between hits of the Internet. I can tell you with absolute certainty it is not the teacher's fault.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay? Teachers that I've talked to both in private and public school. But I do think it's worse in public school because I think a lot of private schools have implemented different rules for probably a longer time now that have said, yeah, no, no phones. But I know this is also a problem at Christian schools because I know parents of kids at Christian schools who have had to work really hard for schools to implement rules that say, no phones, no phones in the hallway, no phones in the classroom. I think I was 16 when the iPhone first came out. I did not have an iPhone when it first came out, but cell phones were already a problem. I think I got a flip phone in seventh grade because I was 13. And I think that was like the age that my parents started letting me go some places by myself with groups of friends. You know, they dropped me off and I would call them when I want to be picked up. Really cool. I still remember my cell phone, and I remember being addicted to my phone, then always wanting to text, and that's all I could do. I remember I would be so mad when I accidentally hit the button that would put you on the Internet. It's like, oh, now I have to get off the Internet because it's going to slow everything down. And I was like, could not even comprehend what anyone would need the Internet for on their phone. And of course, that changed very quickly. Over the course of the next few years. But all of my friends were also addicted to texting and always wanting to talk on the phone. And I remember even getting in trouble in middle school for taking my phone out of my backpack when I wasn't supposed to. There were strict rules around that. And then for some reason, a lot of schools got lax. And then now it seems like they're waking up again to this being a huge problem. But it's still a problem. Even if schools say, you cannot be on your phone at all during school hours, Kids who are on their phones all evening, they wake up with their phones. Their brains are just turning to mush. And she made a point here that Jonathan Haidt has made. That I think is really important. It is the addiction to dopamine. And all of us, no matter our age, are really susceptible to this. Like, we need things to change quickly. We need stimulation. I've definitely been that person who. I will be watching a show and. And I'm doing something on my phone and I'm typing something on my iPad. That honestly sounds like a good time to me. There's something wrong with our brain when we need that much entertainment. And I can tell you it is more difficult for me to read than it used to be to pay attention for a long time. I have to. The book has to be really good and really enthralling for me to read several pages at a time without stopping. I say that to my shame. Okay? And when I was in high school, thank goodness, because we just didn't have as much on our phones. I read all of the time. That's what I was staying up late doing. Now, it might have been some trashy teen fiction that I shouldn't have been reading, but I was reading might not have been good for my heart, but it was better for my brain than being on social media would have been. I'm so glad we didn't have things like Snapchat. Also, just emotionally, I think that's so hard for teenagers, especially teenage girls, to see in real time, that you're being left out rather than hearing about it on Monday after the weekend. But that's how I was, you know, spending my hours. And I could read for hours at a time and pay attention. And now I have a tough time doing that. I even have a tough time paying attention to a TV show without taking a break and looking at my phone again unless it's really interesting to me. And I'm listening right now to an audiobook about ADD. It's by Dr. Amen. And he talks about how shows today move so much more quickly. The frame rate is a lot higher than it used to be to try to keep people's attention. This is true of video games, this is true of phone games, this is true of the videos that I even put up on social media. We have noticed, as every content creator does, that people need movement on the screen to pay attention to your video. That's why you see, when you're watching a video, you probably won't even really notice it, but the video of a commentator will kind of jump in, jump out, it will cut, it will put up different graphics, different pictures, different videos, different texts. That is because the user typically requires those things in order to pay attention. So this has done a number on all of our brains. But when kids whose brains aren't even developed are addicted to dopamine this early, they have a hard time ever being bored, learning how to entertain themselves, learning how to be curious to satisfy their curiosity. They have a hard time reading, they have a hard time working their confidence levels lower because they don't know that they can do difficult things. They don't know that they can endure pain. They don't know that they can be patient. They don't know that they can persevere because they are never made to. It is instant gratification in all of this makes it really hard for them to become mature adults. They don't even know how to stop their own temper tantrums, to stop their own disappointment, because rather than working through those feelings, they are simply given a pacifier in an iPad. And speaking of confidence, this is like, this is a big one and something that Jonathan Haidt talks about a lot, confidence and courage. That is something that is not just lacking in kids today, but it's also lacking in parents. And I get that like, because I go to the park a lot with my kids and my propensity is to be an anxious parent is to overthink. And I have had to discipline myself and practice my own self control and really letting my kids explore and even allowing to a reasonable extent risk and danger and injury when we're at the park. But I would say that most parents there are following their kids closely behind them every step of the way in every part of the park. I'm not talking about their little babies who can't walk yet because that's understandable or who are kind of wobbly. I'm talking about three, four and five year olds kind of hovered and stalked by their parents on, on the playground and this is not just parents. This is not. It's not healthy for the most part. And again, speaking as someone who is tempted by that kind of thing, it's actually causing stunted growth in our, in our kids. That's what a lot, a lot of people argue. And Jonathan Haidt argues for allowing your kids to do risky things at an age appropriate time, particularly around age 7. And so I saw this video going around on Instagram that some people had an issue with. But I thought, okay, this is great. So the video is just so I don't have to play the whole thing. Let me give you a little context first. So this mom says she read this book, the Anxious Generation, and she read in it that they, you know, should be having their kids do hard things. And so she sent her 7 year old son into this Chick Fil? A by himself to order dinner. She can't see him. She's just sitting outside in her car, gives the seven year old her card and says, this is what you should order. If you need any help, ask the manager to help you. And she's so excited because this little kid comes out of the Chick Fil? A carrying all of the drinks and all of the bags. And so he did it. He accomplished the task. And his reaction to accomplishing this task was just so sweet. Here's thought three. Oh my gosh, he did it.

[Phoenix]

Hey, I didn't have to ask the manager or anything really. He just gave it to me. Yes.

[Liv Schmidt]

They just served you.

[Jonathan Haidt]

Yeah.

[Phoenix]

And then, yeah, you got your happy mail. And he gave me some money back. I want to do that again.

[Ali Stuckey]

Really?

[Phoenix]

Yeah. That is so fun.

[Liv Schmidt]

Do you feel like that builds confidence?

[Phoenix]

Yeah, for sure.

[Ali Stuckey]

Like a little nervous.

[Phoenix]

Yeah, like my legs are still shivering, really. But yeah, I. That was so fun.

[Ali Stuckey]

I just, I loved what he said there at the end, that his legs were still shivering, so he was scared, but he did it anyway. And you know, I was talking to Marissa straight, who is the head of Prageru, and I remember her telling me the same thing, that at about age 7 is when you should start allowing your children to take reasonable risks. And I think it comes even before that, depending on the child and depending on what it is. But having your child, you know, cook something or you know, make breakfast, make their own lunch. And she said something that really stuck with me because I think the rebuttal to that is always by parents. But what if they get hurt? And I remember she said if the worst thing that happens is that they get hurt, like that's okay. Like you can go, you can get a band aid or you can even go to the emergency room. That's not saying that that's a good thing. But if it's not a life or death situation, we should be allowing our children to even risk a certain level, of course, of injury because it's good for their character to be brave. And nowadays, like, we have to manufacture the situations for our kids to be brave, but that is a muscle that we want them to build before they leave the house. So all of this, like, really convicts me. Not the technology stuff, because that's not. We don't allow like the, you know, tablet use and the phone use and stuff in our home, but making sure that kids are given the opportunity for courage and responsibility. And this goes back to doing the hard thing in parenting because it's easier just to do it ourselves. And gosh, I'm tempted by that. But doing the hard thing, the thing that takes more time, the thing that might elicit some temper tantrums, the thing that might demand of us emotional regulation and self control is almost always the right thing to do as a parent. And gosh, we are all learning that. And it's different in every season, as I'm sure I will know in the coming years. All right, we've got another segment, a new segment, as I said, with our new or special guest. I'll call her a special guest and her name is Phoenix and she is Gen Z. And she asked if she could come on the show and talk about something that she felt is really important, that I think is really important too. And that is a trend that's going on on Tick Tock called Skinny Talk. And it is basically glorifying anorexia. And this is a form of TikTok that is especially addicting for young women. First of all, your teenage girls shouldn't be on TikTok at all. But it's not just teenagers, it's also young adults. And it is a very unhealthy response to the maybe exaggerated body positivity movement that seems to condone being unhealthy. So she's going to break this down for us in just a second. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor. First, that's Jace Medical. Jace Medical is making sure that you are prepared in a medical emergency. Say you've had, you have an infection, it's urgent, you can't get to your doctor, you can't get to the pharmacy, maybe you can't even get to the emergency room. You just need antibiotics fast. You don't want to be in that kind of panic situation. You want to be able to access an emergency stash of things like antibiotics. And that's why Jace case exists. They'll give you those antibiotics for common infections. You can also add on things like ivermectin or Tamiflu or an epipen and it's just better to be safe than sorry. They also have a Jace daily case so you can get a year long emergency supply of the prescriptions that you and your family rely on, whether it's some kind of weather, calamity, a natural disaster, or a supply chain issue and you just don't have access to the medicine you need. Again, don't want to be in that situation. Go ahead and get that emergency supply. Plus right now they have a giveaway going on on their site. They are giving away a travel Jace case, a Jace go case. If you go to jace.com use code ALI@ checkout for a discount on your order. That's jace.comCode Alley Phoenix, thanks so much for joining Relatable for the first time. Thank you for having me. Yes. So Phoenix talked to Bri and to me about this segment having kind of like a pop culture social media segment, but about things happening online that really matter. And you brought up Skinny Talk. I'm not on TikTok, so I have no idea what it is, but when you explain to me, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's probably having a big effect, especially on young women. So can you just break it down for us? What is it?

[Liv Schmidt]

Yeah. So skinny talk is essentially this whole, like, genre of TikTok where these influencers, they call themselves like skinny influencers, are kind of taking to TikTok to help other people get skinny. But I think what they're promoting is kind of unhealthy. I mean, I don't want to like, shame anyone, but I. I still feel like it's important to draw a line as to, like, what is healthy behavior and what seems to be more along the lines of like, obsession leading to, you know, disordered thoughts and patterns.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah. So I want to play some of these videos from. Is it. I mean, do they call themselves, like, Skinny talk influencers?

[Liv Schmidt]

They do.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay.

[Liv Schmidt]

They do.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay. So let's play some of these and then we can kind of get your reaction to them. Liv Schmidt, who is she before we play her video?

[Liv Schmidt]

Liv Schmidt is definitely one of the more like, I would say infamous Skinny Talk influencers. She's kind of one of the first ones. She is. I mean, well, first of all, like, she's objectively, like, beautiful, and she seems like she likes to have fun and live her life, but she also kind of. Her shtick is. She calls it portion control, but it's very obsessive in the way that she, like, markets this, like, how to get skinny. She actually sells a course on, like, how to get skinny, everything I do to get skinny, etc.

[Ali Stuckey]

And so you feel like it's just glorifying eating disorders. It's basically very strict calorie restriction.

[Liv Schmidt]

Yes. And. And one of Liv Schmidt's things is that you need to. That you need to, like, portion restrict, like, to a degree that, like, she recommends, like, eating, like, five bites of a meal.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay.

[Liv Schmidt]

And then walking away.

[Ali Stuckey]

That's what's meant by it. Because obviously, portion restriction, like, is important. We shouldn't eat, like, a whole pizza on our own because that's gluttony. But she's saying don't. Just don't eat until you're full. Eat, like, five bites. Okay, here's top five.

[Amanda Doppler]

A lot of you love to ask me what I eat in a day, and the second I tell you or even hint at it, shock. It's horror. It's panic. Like, that's barely any food. Yeah. No. What do you think I'm eating? A ton of donuts, pizza and McDonald's or every day? Babe, be serious. Be so for real. I don't eat like that because I don't want to look like that. I eat in portions. I eat with intention. If I ate, like, garbage, I would feel like garbage and I wouldn't look the way I do. I chose to be skinny. I chose to be disciplined. And if that makes you uncomfortable, that's not my problem.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay. Is it discipline or is it disorder? There's a difference.

[Liv Schmidt]

There is. So I feel like the difference lies in what she actually recommends. Now, she will say that she doesn't have any, like, restricted feedback foods, but she also advocates for, like, actually only eating five bites of a meal and then walking away. So she's. It's a different version of. I feel like, disordered eating. Not so much focused on, like, foods that you're afraid of, but focused on, like, just the portion size that being so small. Like, it's actually, like, a toddler portion.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yes. Okay. Everyone that I've known that has struggled with disordered eating. And I've talked about this before. I've written about it before. I did when I was in college. It started out by. I wouldn't have called it anorexia. At the time. And actually I kind of have a, still a hard time calling it that, but it was certainly restrictive eating and I had a lot of friends who were doing the same thing. But because we were eating and because we would eat cake and we would eat Mexican food and we would eat whatever we wanted, we would never say that we had any sort of issue, but it was. You would eat as small as possible. And then for me, during this time period of my life, I was working out hard twice a day, and my goal was to cancel out any calories that I was eating. That is not discipline. That is a disorder. That's a disorder.

[Liv Schmidt]

I agree, I agree. And I struggled with an eating disorder when I was in high school as well. And, and I have to agree with you, like, I did. I feel like the, the whole nine yards with it all. Like, there were foods that I like, absolutely refused to eat, and I definitely like, restricted the foods that I did eat. But I feel like that kind of, that kind of mentality gives. It's so hard because you don't want to like, you know, shame these people or give them like the negative attention that they're, that they're seeking because like, that's. Eating disorders are competitive. And, and, and these people. Liv Schmidt, she says all the time, eat small, be small. Or she also says, you're not a dog, don't reward yourself with food. Which I feel like is, is so telling.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah.

[Liv Schmidt]

Of, of where her mindset actually is.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah. I remember I had a friend who recommended a book in college and it was called the Skinny Girl Method. And it was literally like, never eat a full banana, just eat half of it and then put it away. I'm like, what? I mean, that's basically, that's basically what we're talking about here. Quick pause from that conversation to tell you guys about one of my all time favorite favorite sponsors because they make some of my all time favorite products and that is Adele Natural Cosmetics. I use Adele every day. Their oil based essential cleanser is my favorite. It gets all of my makeup off. Even when I'm wearing studio makeup, my skin is left feeling clean and also really moisturized. I use their essential moisturizing spray. I also really like their Blue Lagoon line. It's very luxurious, very moisturizing. Also, when I'm not in the studio, I use their products for my makeup. Their moisturizing foundation and blush is all just so good. This is a Christian family owned company who only use holistic natural ingredients in every single one of their handmade products. Go to adelenaturalcosmetics.com when you use code ALI, you get 25 off your first time purchase. That's Adele. Naturalcosmetics.com Code Ally. Okay, there's someone who goes by, I guess, the moniker, the mean older sister of Tick tock Minna. Or is it Mina?

[Liv Schmidt]

I think that one's Amanda Doppler.

[Ali Stuckey]

Oh, okay. Mina Zeli.

[Liv Schmidt]

Mina Zeli is on. Is on. One of the bigger skinny influencers on TikTok.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay, let's play Sat9.

[Mina Zeli]

Welcome to Skinny Talk. Get ready with me while I tell you my biggest tips and tricks I use to stay skinny. There is no secret. There is no tricks. You just eat less and you stay active. You make it your lifestyle. Yeah. There is no tips and tricks. There is no buckwheat. There is no intermittent fasting. There is no carnivore diet that will. Will make you lose weight and keep it off. It's one of those things where once you lose the weight, you continue doing that to an extent to keep it off.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay, here is the meaner older sister. We had that on the wrong person. Amanda Dobler. Saw eight.

[Liv Schmidt]

You want to lose weight, but you're super busy right now, and you're gonna wait until you actually have time in like a few weeks or a few months. That's pathetic. You're quitting before you even start.

[Mina Zeli]

Like, that is just the most.

[Liv Schmidt]

Most loser behavior I've ever heard of in my entire life.

[Ali Stuckey]

Okay, so are these people reacting to the overly exaggerated body positivity movement, which basically has people on the COVID of, you know, Seventeen magazine who are obviously not in shape, saying, this is healthy. It's okay to be obese, and you can be whatever weight you want, and it's totally healthy. That's also not true. Do you see this as kind of an unhealthy pendulum swing from that?

[Liv Schmidt]

Totally. Yeah. I think it's. It's largely reactionary. I think a lot of. I think. I think it's expressing a desire that a lot of women have to be beautiful and, you know, be healthy. And there's. But the problem is that, you know, when you get so obsessed with it that, like, you talk that way to yourself and you talk that way to other people. Like, it definitely demonstrates a level of obsession that is like, the complete other side of unhealthy behavior. And, you know, the one thing that I really feel like the body positivity movement got right was that, like, we shouldn't be shaming people for how they look like that. That kind of like early 2000s tabloids thing where, you know, they would blow up images of celebrities literally just trying to have a vacation.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah.

[Liv Schmidt]

And be like, oh, my God, look at her cellulite. She's gained five pounds. And. And that, like, the body positivity movement. Absolutely hit the. No, like, hit it on the nose when they said, like, no, we shouldn't be doing that. And this is kind of like reverting back to that, you know, mindset, like.

[Ali Stuckey]

90S, early 2000s, where. Yeah, there's. Gosh, there's so much there. There's this comedian. She talks about how she was, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s and how she took something called Dexatrim to lose weight. And she said it was literally speed. It was like speed that she would take it. It's a funny bit, but obviously it was really unhealthy. And I'm even thinking I was in college or I was in high school. You know, it was probably 2008, and my friends and I did a Special K diet before homecoming or something. Gosh, so stupid. We were all probably, you know, tiny anyway, and we did a Special K diet that was. It was guaranteed that you would lose, you know, ten pounds in two weeks or something like that. And I'm like, of course, because all you ate was Special K, which is basically air. And so, I mean, it's swung the other direction to where it's like, eat whatever you want. Look at, like, whatever you want. Don't work out. Whatever feels good to some degree. But, yeah, we've got to land somewhere in the middle where we say it's okay to not have a quote, unquote, perfect body. You're supposed to have body fat. You are supposed to eat until you are satisfied. And we should be focusing on healthy foods that nourish our bodies, not just being a certain weight, but with the Ozempic craze, it's made a lot of people want to look stick skinny again.

[Liv Schmidt]

Yeah, I think that's a really good point to bring up because, like, you know what Hollywood does? I feel like influencers monetize. You know, when it was like, the Kardashian curves were very in style, influencers were selling, like, how to get Kim Kardashian butt workout programs. Like, one that comes to mind for me is a girl named Daisy Keech. She's kind of known for that, like, itty bitty waist, like, big hips, and definitely very, like, strong glutes. But, you know, that's kind of her natural genetics. And, you know, those influencers definitely knew that the Kardashians had bbls, but they were still trying to sell you this program that would promise to make you look like Kylie.

[Ali Stuckey]

BBL is a Brazilian butt lift. And that is like a procedure that they have. And now the Kardashians are a lot skinnier than they used to be.

[Liv Schmidt]

Oh yeah, they. I feel like they've totally jumped on the, the weight loss craze that we've kind of been seeing in Hollywood as well. Along with people like Sharon Osborne has been really vocal about her journey with Ozempic. People like Rebel Wilson and I think Kelly Clarkson has gotten a lot thinner. Um, but.

[Ali Stuckey]

And that's not always bad. No, I'm not even personally, I'm not against Ozempic for all people. I actually think because obesity, it can be really harmful. So I'm not against Ozempic all around, but it certainly has given people like unrealistic expectations.

[Liv Schmidt]

Yeah.

[Ali Stuckey]

For weight loss and what actually is healthy. Gosh. Girls just have it really hard because I remember when it was cool back in like the early 2000s to have part of your belly showing in between like your hips and your. And your belly button. It was so weird.

[Liv Schmidt]

Oh gosh, I could never do that.

[Ali Stuckey]

Because you had to have like these little narrow hips to do that. And I could never do that. And then I.

[Liv Schmidt]

And also, literally abs.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Haidt]

Yes.

[Ali Stuckey]

And of course Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears had like the belly button rings. I was actually kind of excited when the Kardashians came on the scene because then that meant that not everyone was trying to have like 9 year old boy hit anymore. But it just goes back and forth, which just means we really should not be looking to social media or cultural trends to judge whether or not our body is healthy. Totally.

[Liv Schmidt]

And like Ozempic has definitely helped so many people. I feel like, you know, it's been used in a clinical setting for a lot longer than it's been like this kind of cultural phenomenon. And it's absolutely helped people. Like western medicine should not be demonized. But you know, then you see like this kind of resurgence of that like early 2000s 90s, like heroin chic where everybody's kind of stick thin and people who are already thin are either like dieting or using this drug. Allegedly. Allegedly. To get that way, somebody that comes to mind is like Ariana Grande.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah. Again, know what's going on there. She's okay.

[Liv Schmidt]

I hope she's okay too. And like not to shame her because I mean, she seems really sweet and like a really wonderful person in some respects. Yeah. Not necessarily in the homewrecker respect. But I mean it's worrisome, you know, it's not to like call her out. It's just worrisome that, that like it seems like it's gotten to a point where she looks like emaciated and it's sad.

[Ali Stuckey]

Yeah, I know. And it's really hard when that is being idolized, especially by young children. And this goes back to our, you know, our second story for the day that our kids need to be off social media and especially like our young girls. It just causes so much anxiety. But Phoenix, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and for telling us why it matters because it really does. I appreciate it.

[Liv Schmidt]

Appreciate you, Ally. Thank you.

[Ali Stuckey]

Thank you. All right, guys, that's all we've got time for today. We will be back here on Monday.