Sunday Pick: The science of raising kids (Part 2): How to raise healthy kids with Dr. Shari Barkin | from TED Health

Summary

Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily – "The Science of Raising Kids (Part 2): How to Raise Healthy Kids with Dr. Shari Barkin"

Episode Overview This episode of TED Talks Daily (Feb 22, 2026) showcases a conversation from the TED Health miniseries “The Science of Growing Up.” Host Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider interviews Dr. Shari Barkin, a leading pediatrician and community health researcher, on the practical science behind raising healthy, thriving children. Through current research and personal insights, Dr. Barkin shares accessible, hopeful strategies for families to foster children’s wellness—both physically and mentally—within the challenging realities of today’s world. The episode concludes with a TED Talk from Claudia Passos Ferreira, who explores what it means to be a conscious newborn.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Modern Complexity of Raising Healthy Kids

• [01:22–04:00] Dr. Ungerleider sets the stage, noting the everyday pressures—screen time, food choices, financial constraints—that weigh on families. The episode emphasizes a holistic and community-centered view of child health.

2. Health Happens Everywhere, Not Just the Doctor’s Office

• [07:15] Dr. Shari Barkin:
  • “The only way our life happens is one step at a time and that we don’t go it alone… Health happens everywhere, all at once, and not as much in the doctor’s office as it does in the home, in the schools, in communities, in workplaces. That’s where we spend most of our time.”
  • [07:57–09:25] Dr. Barkin advocates for environmental changes at home, work, and school, such as setting aside 30–45 minutes phone-free for family interaction.
  • Notable Example: Dr. Barkin’s family collects phones in a basket during mealtime to foster direct connection—a challenging but impactful ritual.

3. The Community's Role in Child Health

• [10:05] Dr. Barkin:
  • Introduces a model where the child is at the center, surrounded by layers: family, friends, community, and society.
  • Collaboration between healthcare teams and community organizations (parks, libraries, schools) can create broader, more equitable impacts on children’s health.
  • Memorable Quote [11:49]: “We have so much in our civic environment that if we fully utilize, we can get to better faster together.”

4. Family-Based Interventions for Childhood Wellness

• [13:35–17:01] Description of her approach to family-based health interventions:
  • Brings multiple families together within communities
  • Focuses less on top-down education and more on peer-led problem-solving
  • Leveraging social networks (real-life reciprocal relationships, not social media) to drive new behaviors
  • Memorable Story: A family group noticed a participant’s absence, checked in, and discovered a mother suffering from depression—demonstrating the power and ripple effect of social support [16:30].

5. Conversations About Weight: Sensitivity and Trust

• [17:51] Dr. Barkin rejects stigmatizing language (“obesity,” “overweight”) during sensitive conversations. She focuses on factual, health-related observations and always seeks parental consent before discussing these topics. This approach seeks to protect dignity and build trust.

6. Designing Programs That Work for Real Families

• [19:26] Dr. Barkin underscores the importance of humility, not making assumptions, and deeply listening to each family’s individual circumstances:
  • “You are the expert in your life…Tell me about your circumstances…How can I help you the most?”
  • Customization and curiosity are key.

7. Practical Tools: Starting Small and Modeling Healthy Behaviors

• [22:35–24:31] Dr. Barkin’s approach to behavior change:

  • Meet families where they are—invite them to choose a first step.
  • Examples: Family dance parties, quick morning exercise routines done in clinic visits, and other low-cost activities.
  • Funny Moment [24:31]: “Oh, I will dance in the exam room. I will do push ups in the exam room. I will certainly do a plank…If I can do this, you can do this.”

• [25:28] On modeling:

  • “Whatever you’re doing, children are watching. So think about what you’re doing first. Think about how you can improve your own health. We know, for example…children who grow up with parents who are physically active…are six to nine times as likely to become physically active not only in childhood, but when they become adults.”
  • It’s not only about what parents say but what they do—the power of visibility and routine.

8. Enduring Scientific Truths in Raising Healthy Kids

• [27:49] Dr. Barkin lists five foundations supported by consensus:
  1. Social Connection: “We are a social species. We’re not meant to be isolated…[Screens] look like kids are engaged, but they actually aren’t engaged with us.”
  2. Quality Nutrition: Bodies function best with minimally processed, whole foods.
  3. Movement: “We’re built to move. We’re not built to sit…Just move.”
  4. Sleep: Both children and adults need sufficient, high-quality sleep for health and memory.
  5. Stress: Acute stress is normal, but chronic stress (amplified today by modern life) is harmful.

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TED Talk Segment: What’s It Like to Be a Newborn? (Claudia Passos Ferreira)

[37:28–46:52]

• Premise: Investigates infant consciousness—are newborns passive or already conscious beings?
• Key Research/Findings:
  • Newborns (and even late-term fetuses) show the same brain activity as conscious adults when surprised (oddball paradigm)—suggesting early consciousness.
  • Infants display shifts in brain attention networks, similar to adults cycling between external focus and daydreaming.
  • Conscious perception is present in late-term fetuses, implying that awareness begins before birth.
• Ethical Note: Consciousness requires brain structures developing after 24 weeks’ gestation.
• Memorable Closing Quote [45:42]:
  • “They are not passive creatures waiting for consciousness to switch on. They are tiny humans, already perceiving patterns and interacting with the world in a meaningful way.…From the moment we take our first breath to the moment of our deaths, our lives are lit by the flame of awareness.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Starting Small
  [07:15] Dr. Barkin: “The only way our life happens is one step at a time and that we don’t go it alone.”

• On Social Networks and Family Interventions
  [14:30] Dr. Barkin: "We tend to learn new knowledge and new behaviors through the weak ties. So I'm more likely to change my behavior if a friend or an acquaintance introduces me into something new..."

• On Modeling Behavior
  [25:28] Dr. Barkin: “Whatever you’re doing, children are watching…Paying attention to building those behaviors, your children are watching…”

• On Sleep
  [32:22] Dr. Barkin: “There are so many reasons why we’re built that way…memory encoding, just a flush of metabolizing the day and how you’re thinking, your immune system, your inflammatory responses—all of those things are related to solid good sleep.”

• On Enduring Truths
  [27:49] Dr. Barkin: “We are a social species…if we don’t have appropriate nutrition, we can’t function optimally…We’re built to move…we need to sleep…It’s not that stress is bad…but if it’s chronic, that’s when it creates all of that chronic inflammation that just makes us sick.”

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Key Timestamps

• 06:53 – Guest introduction: Dr. Shari Barkin
• 07:15 – Steps for families: Start small, seek support
• 09:25 – Family routines: Screen-free meals as one practical step
• 10:05 – The layered model of child health (child, family, community, society)
• 13:35 – What is a family-based intervention?
• 17:51 – Framing weight and health conversations
• 19:26 – Designing interventions for diverse families
• 22:35 – Small, practical behavior changes and modeling
• 25:28 – The crucial role of caregiving adults as role models
• 27:49 – Enduring truths: core tenets of a healthy childhood
• 37:28–46:52 – Claudia Passos Ferreira’s TED Talk on infant consciousness

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Takeaways for Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

• Raising healthy kids doesn’t have to be overwhelming: Start with one small, doable change and build.
• Health is shaped more by daily environments (home, school, community) than by the doctor’s office.
• Interventions that work leverage community support, social connection, and peer learning—rather than just expert advice.
• Adults’ daily actions, attitudes, and routines powerfully shape kids’ habits and self-image.
• The foundation of health includes social connection, nutritious food, regular movement, good sleep, and stress management.
• Infants are conscious and responsive to the world around them far earlier than previously believed, making early environment and care crucial.
• Throughout, the message is grounded, hopeful, and focused on practical, compassionate steps for parents and communities.

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Transcript

[Elise Hu]

Hey, TED Talks Daily listeners. I'm Elise Hu. Today we have an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective handpicked by us for you. Are you a parent or caregiver to young people with everything from negotiating food choices to managing screen time to figuring out the right way to approach heavy topics about the world? It can feel more and more complicated to raise healthy and grounded kids. But pediatricians Dr. Sherry Barkin says it doesn't have to be. On this episode of TED Health, as part of a miniseries exploring the science of raising kids, host Shoshana Ungerlider speaks with Sherry about how to manage parental overwhelm and the importance of carving out 10 minutes of the day to model a healthy lifestyle and help everyone in the family thrive. You'll also hear snippets of a talk from bioethicist and clinical psychologist Claudia Passos Ferreira, which was published on this Feedback late last year. You can listen to more of this special series on TED Health wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about the TED audio [e-mail] now onto the episode. Enjoy.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

This is TED Health, a podcast from Ted, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter. It's our second episode in a special miniseries called the Science of Growing up, exploring the health and science of parenting and raising young people. Across these conversations, we're looking at how children grow not just biologically, but within their families, schools and communities that shape them every day. And I've been thinking about how raising healthy kids has become complicated, not in a catastrophic way, but in the quiet, everyday decisions that add up the after school snacks, the screen time negotiations, the stress of packed schedules and tight budgets. So many parents I talk to tell me they're trying their best, but it still feels like the world around them is stacked with challenges. And the truth is, they're not imagining it. Many families in the US Today are navigating neighborhoods without safe places to play, limited grocery options, or the ripple effects of chronic stress. And as we mentioned on this show before, these conditions shape childhood in profound ways. It's important to take a holistic approach to health, particularly for children as they continue to develop and grow. That's why I'm so grateful for people like my guest this week, Dr. Sherry Barkin. Dr. Barkin is an internationally recognized leader in pediatrics, someone who has spent her career going beyond the exam room to understand how children actually grow, learn, eat, move and thrive in the world. As the pediatrician in chief for children's healthcare of Atlanta and the Pediatrics Chair at Emory University school of medicine. Dr. Barkin is known for groundbreaking community engaged research about helping children and families live healthier lives. In our conversation, we talk about what's shaping children's health right now, from the environments they grow up in, to the daily stressors families are juggling to, to the simple, practical steps that can make a real difference. It's a hopeful, grounded look at how we can support kids not just in moments of crisis, but across the arc of their whole lives. Then join us for a talk that takes us back to the very beginning. What is it like to be a newborn? Philosopher and psychologist Claudia Passos Ferreira explores how understanding the infant experience shapes the ways that we care for our youngest children. But before we dive in, a quick break to hear from our sponsors. Imagine the merging of trusted intelligence into a unified experience.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

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[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

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[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

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[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

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[Elise Hu]

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[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Doctor Sherry Barkin, welcome to TED Health.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

I'm so delighted to be here.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Thank you, Dr. Barkin. When you think about raising healthy kids at this moment in time, with real pressures and then so much conflicting messaging about parenting, what feels most important for families to understand about how health actually develops in childhood?

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

First, I remind everybody that the only way our life happens is one step at a time and that we don't go it alone. What things have you already been trying that you feel works for your family to maximize good health? And where are the trouble spots for you?

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah, I think that idea of starting small can feel like such a relief for people, especially when we remember that families, of course, don't operate in isolation. And you know, you've spent your career looking not just at a single child's well being, but at the ecosystem around them. Especially when we know that zip code can be a stronger predictor of health than genetic code. Right.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

Health happens everywhere all at once. And not as much in the doctor's office as it does in the home, in the schools, in communities, in workplaces. That's where we spend most of our time. So if instead you zoom out and you look and you say, what's one thing in my home environment that would make this easier for my family? So not thinking one child at a time, one adult at a time, but something very lowest common denominator, that would make things easier for us. I'll give you an example. I have three kids and we made up. You put your phones away, including the adults. This is actually just as hard for adults as it is for kids, but we're going to take this 30 to 45 minutes. If you're lucky, you get more than that. But I would take 30 to 45 minutes any day. And you have a basket, everybody puts their phones up so that you have to actually stop reaching for your phone and instead start reaching for each other just around the table. It's one thing you could do in a home environment. And I'm not saying it's easy because we're so connected to our phones, it's almost become a part of our bodies. So then we do the same thing, and we say, well, what's one thing at work? What's one thing in the schools? What's one thing after my kids get home from school? If you break it down into those elemental pieces, it feels very doable.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah, I certainly have tried that idea of putting the screens, the tablets or the phones aside with my sister and her kids. And it makes a difference when kids are really. And the family is really engaged and connected. But it's, like you said, really hard to do. And seeing how place and context shape health over time raises important questions about who's responsible and who has the power to create change. And you've worked inside hospitals and out in neighborhoods. What does it look like when healthcare teams partner with communities? And then what would it take to ensure that those benefits reach every child out there?

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

I always apply this model where the child is at the center. I'm a pediatrician, so child's at the center, you're surrounded by your family, and that's defined in your way. Families look like a lot of different things. Then you're surrounded by friends, acquaintances. You live in a neighborhood, a community, and then you're influenced by society and societal messages. Whether you happen to live in a context where you're in a community with a park you can walk to, or if you feel safe walking in your community. All these things interact over time to shape our behaviors, which then really influence our health. And when I say health, mental and physical health, to me, it's all our health. It's one thing. It's not separate things. So that means I look at it from all different levels, and I know it feels overwhelming. We need to have our own sense of agency to know that we are our most powerful advocates and our choices and our behaviors matter. And they matter not just for us, but for our kids. The second component is I'm very fortunate to be a pediatrician and to work with children and families in a healthcare setting. And that is an opportunity to really help families understand where they can make the most powerful changes in their context. And a lot of the work that I've done in my career is very exciting for me because I've been working with existing community infrastructure, parks and recreation, the library, the ymca, the ywca, Boys and Girls Clubs. We have so much in our civic environment that if we fully utilize, we can get to better faster together. So the way that looks as an example, I've created connections and relationships between children's hospitals and parks and recreation. We have worked with schools so that we then design after school programs together where that just becomes part of the natural day. And what we learned is that kids are the best agents of change for their parents. I know we think it goes the other way and I'm not saying that it doesn't. Parents of course help shape how our children see the world and how we behave in the world. But we cannot underestimate the power of that bi directional relationship. So when your child says to you I think it's time to put the phone down, you're probably going to put it down more than if I as your child's pediatrician remind you to do it.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah, building on that a little bit. One issue where that I think community approach and that integration really matters is childhood obesity. I don't need to tell you this, but maybe our listeners don't realize nearly one in five children in the US is now living with obesity. And you've led major community based studies addressing this issue. One area that you focus on is what's known as family based intervention. Right? A program that works with both the child and their caregivers to build healthier habits by teaching practical skills around nutrition. As you mentioned, activity, sleep, screen time. So Dr. Barkin, what does a family based intervention actually look like in real life?

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

Yeah, I'll tell you. There are many different flavors. But the type of family based interventions that I've led and developed with my teams includes not just one family but but many families coming together in somewhere in the context of their community. It includes not only learning because a lot of people actually already know what's hard is applying. Especially if you have $10 in your pocket or you live in a place that's not so safe or you're not feeling comfortable sending your kids outside to play. Bringing families together in the context of their communities and allowing them to solve problems together. It's less of an expertise kind of approach of I have the information, here's the education. If only you apply it, you will get to Your best health. That's not how it works. Health is dynamic, and it also is contextual. So we would bring groups of families together, and then we would use something called social networks. Social networks just for our listeners. It's not about social media. It's about social connection. And sometimes social media does that. But when I say social networks, I would feel comfortable calling you to say, hey, I'm going to be late coming home from work today. Could you let my dog out? And you might feel comfortable saying, could you take my trash out? I'm going to be away. That reciprocal tie is considered to be a social network. Sometimes those ties are strong and sometimes they're weak. We tend to learn new knowledge and new behaviors through the weak ties. So I'm more likely to change my behavior if a friend or an acquaintance introduces me into something new, rather than my sister, my brother, my parent, my spouse recommends it to me. So we use that sociology to guide when we brought groups together, how we put them together. We had people that we would then move around to generate more of these weak ties. And we actually mapped them over time. And what we saw was we became a voice, but not the only voice. It was the community of families. In that context, people would say, I know sleep is important, but I cannot get my child to sleep. And what do you all do? What works? The other thing that happened because of that sort of shaping, using a social network's perspective for behavior change in groups of families is they started reaching out to each other. This was not part of our study. They noticed if somebody wasn't showing up, they went to their home, their apartment, they checked. Actually, this entire group went to check on a family that hadn't shown up for a couple of weeks because they knew that was unusual. And they had started walking together as families, and they knocked on her door. And that's how they learned that she was in a major depression. And because of the social connectivity, that social capital, they were able to intervene. And that improved her health and their health and had a ripple effect across the families. So that's what I mean by family based interventions.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah, fascinating. You know, on this show, we've talked a lot about social connection in the context of older adults and social isolation and loneliness leading to early mortality. So thinking about it in the context of families and around younger children, I think that's. That's the right time, right, to be thinking about this, to be engaging in those community connections. Now, I want to talk about an area that I know you're passionate about, and that is Thinking about childhood obesity and when we talk about obesity, I think at least I can tell you from my own life, emotions can run high. How do you frame conversations about weight and about health in ways that protect dignity, build trust and hopefully avoid stigma?

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

This is such a good question. The way we see ourselves and our bodies is a very important and intimate part of respecting ourselves. And so how we enter into those conversations really is from a lens of health. So for example, I usually will tell families, I notice that your child's weight is growing faster than their height and that's not good for their health. Would that be okay if we talked about that? I found that the words obesity, overweight, they carry a negative valence. And even though from a medical perspective we know it is a condition of a chronic inflammatory disease state, it doesn't mean that when I'm talking to the regular person, when I'm talking to a family, it means you're labeling me and you're judging me. And then we've lost all therapeutic alliance.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah, I think building that trust, finding the right words to talk about it is so critical and even more important when we remember how different families lives can look across communities. Right. You mentioned this. Resources and stressors can look wildly different. What does it take to design a program or even a study that actually works for families with different schedules, different incomes, cultures, challenges? I know this is a really big question, but maybe. I know you've worked in this space a long time, so maybe an example of this.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

I'm expecting that you will only ask me the big questions, so thank you. You are not disappointing me. Sorry, I mean that as a compliment because these are the right questions to ask. I don't assume that anybody lives in the same context. You are the expert in your life. So I ask people to tell me about their circumstance and then tell me about what they've tried and tell me what's worked and what hasn't worked. And then I always ask the question, how can I help you the most? Because if I enter from a place of. I actually know these are the things you should eat for best nutrition. This is the physical activity you should have for optimal physiologic functioning. This is how much sleep you have to reset your metabolism and to lower your anxiety. All those things could be true. But if they are not applicable to you in your life, I haven't done anything to help you. And that's the ultimate goal. So first it's true humility. I think this is just how we should be in life to each other. Just not make assumptions. Instead, be curious. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your concerns. And how can I help you advance your health and your child's health? Because if we do it together as a family, it will benefit everybody.

[Elise Hu]

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[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah, so understanding what works in the real world also pushes us to think differently about behavior change itself. And we're learning more about that in adults and kids and how small shifts compound over time. You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but in your research, what's one practice that consistently moves the needle if there is one? Especially in communities where the systemic stressors like housing instability or limited grocery options surely shape their daily choices.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

So the answer's gonna be different for different people. It's starting small with something you feel you can do that matters to you. So I don't have that value. And that valence that I would understand is important for You, I might say, here are a menu of things that my patients have really benefited from. For one small step. Do any of these sound appealing to you? And if not, what would be most appealing to you? So I always work with parent child pairs, though, and if they're siblings in the room, I get them involved too. So some families really want to. They're more physically engaged and kinetic when I see them in the room. And I'll say, do you have. Is. Do you have family dance parties? Do you just turn the music on one song and have a family dance party? Is that something that you've done before? I often in clinic when I see the more kinetic families, I'll say, I am going to show you three exercises you can do as soon as you wake up every morning. It's going to make you feel good. It's going to build muscles, it's going to just rev up your metabolism and it'll take less than 10 minutes. And then I do it as part of the visit and I have everybody do it with me.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

You dance in the exam room.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

Oh, I will dance in the exam room. I will do push ups in the exam room. I will certainly do a plank like, all right, if I can do this, you can do this.

[Elise Hu]

I love it.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

I wish that during training there was more of that. My goodness.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

You know what? I also, I'll do plyometrics. But all of these things are just examples of. Look how tangible it is. This costs zero dollars. This is something you could do in the morning or at night, or you choose the time, set your timer for 10 minutes. Everybody can find 10 minutes.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah. Those insights, I think, highlight something that your work has made very clear, and that's that children don't build habits alone. Right. We often talk about habits as if kids just build them by themselves. But of course, adults matter a lot. So what have you learned about the role of parents and caregivers that maybe felt either counterintuitive or maybe hopeful?

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

I really want to underscore what you're saying. Parents and I put that in quotes because every family is. The composition looks different. If you are that dependable adult in a child's life or I'm talking to you and the way that you matter is we learn by observing. This is what our species is built to do. So whatever you're doing, children are watching. So think about what you're doing first. Think about how you can improve your own health. We know, for example, that children who grow up with parents who are physically active, where parents are physically active with their children six to nine times as likely to become physically active, not only in childhood, but when they become adults. Now, if you're off and you're in the gym and your children don't see you being physically active, it doesn't have the same impact. You have to see that this is actually normative behavior in our family is we wake up and we do these crazy dance moves that Dr. Barkin showed me, or hold a plank or do some plyometrics, or maybe we just take a walk after dinner for 10 minutes. It becomes normative, and that becomes your set point. So paying attention to building those behaviors, your children are watching. And then the main surprise to me is your children are still watching. When you think they don't care, when you think they're just engaged in whatever screen they're looking at, and they're not listening to you, they are listening to you. It's just on a different channel, it's on a different wavelength in their brain. Your voice will come back to them. So what you say really matters. What you do matters the most.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

One thing I hear from my friends, patients is that what they're seeing on social media, what they're hearing in the news is a lot of information. Sometimes it's misinformation. Research, of course, is always evolving. So sometimes the scientific community is coming out with new recommendations. What are we confident about when it comes to helping kids thrive? And maybe where are we still learning?

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

Oh, another really wonderful question. So first, we're always learning. That's absolutely right. We take what we believe is the best information at the time, and we use it to the best of our ability. That's all we can do. And then we might learn that things have changed, and we will continue to grow, and we will continue to change that way. So I would say here are the foundational truths. We are a social species. We're not meant to be isolated. And the strange thing that I have had the opportunity to witness because I've been a pediatrician for more than 30 years now, is with the introduction of screens, it looks like kids are engaged, but they actually aren't engaged with us. And they're not learning how to deal with conflict. They're not learning how to deal with failure. They're not learning how to deal with their own emotions. And that takes us away from how we are structured physiologically to behave, to learn, to be healthy, and to grow. Undeniable truth number one, We're a social species. And being social means truly connecting where you feel loved in a way that you could reach out and you could say things that are uncomfortable and people aren't going to cancel you. They're not going to ghost you. They're actually still going to be right by your side. So that's undeniable truth number one. The second is that we run on fuel. That is the only way our bodies function. And remember, when I say bodies, I mean mind and every element, every other element of our body as well. So if we don't have appropriate nutrition, we can't function optimally. That's another way that our body is constructed. So what is optimal and what does that look like? That science is continuing to emerge. And it probably looks different for me now that I'm at my age of life than it did for me when I was 10. And so the answers might be different depending on your developmental stage of life. But here is another enduring truth related to nutrition. Anything that is closer to what it actually looks like when it comes out of the ground or it has been prepared in terms of meat. For us, the less processing, the better for your body. That is absolutely just a basic truth. The reason why we process food is so that it's convenient and that it can last longer. Nobody processes food to make it healthier. Now, there might be things that are added to it where you say that additional might add to my health. But if you're able to get that addition, let's say it's more protein. Getting more protein from a less processed source is best for your body. So that's the second truth. The third is we're built to move. We're not built to sit. And yet we've engineered a society almost everywhere, globally. We've engineered a society where there's a lot less need to move. In fact, we're happy just running in place. That's what a treadmill is, that need to move. Your body, our entire body is built to move. If you don't move, you're not going to be able to sustain good health. So movement, though, doesn't have to be like what I did last night with trx, which, by the way, if you've ever done that, hardest class of my life.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

I love trx.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

Of course you do, because you're very strong. I'm committed to making it easier, but it does. It doesn't have to look like that. Honestly, it can look like, for me, I just walked between one hospital and another hospital here. That is physical activity. I took the stairs and not the elevator. That is physical activity. When I go home and I'm vacuuming that is physical activity. Just move. So that's the third one. The fourth one is sleep. Not all species need to sleep the amount that we need to sleep, but we need to sleep seven to nine hours. And when you are a younger child, it's much more than that. It's 10 to 12. There are so many reasons why we're built that way. A lot of it has to do with metabolism, just physiologic cleanup and all the DNA repair that needs to happen. Memory encoding, just a flush of metabolizing the day and how you're thinking, your immune system, your inflammatory responses, all of those things are related to solid good sleep. So how do you get that solid good sleep? There really isn't a hack. There isn't a hack for it. And it's harder to do in some communities. If you live in a community with a lot of noise pollution, it's hard. If you happen to be sensitive to noise, you could put in earbuds. That's something that you could do to try to make it a quieter environment. Certainly screens and any type of blue light that gives your brain a different switch and it makes your brain think, I should stay awake. So there are certain things that you can shut down. So your brain can also shut down in a way that allows everything in your body that needs to happen. So that's number four. That's an enduring truth. And number five, it's not that stress is bad. We have stress systems and stress responses for a very good reason. We're supposed to be able to handle stress, but it's supposed to be acute. It should have an onset and it should have a switch that turns it off. If instead it's chronic, that's when it creates all of that chronic inflammation that just makes us sick. So our world today has created a lot of stress on and how we process information and even confusion about who we are and our value systems and our identities as we grow over time. And that's really stressful.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

Yeah. Wow. These enduring truths. I think you touched on, like every hot topic in health and medicine that we've ever done on this show. Dr. Sherry Barkin, thank you so much. This was a fascinating conversation.

[Dr. Sherry Barkin]

Thank you. And be well, be healthy.

[Elise Hu]

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My conversation with Dr. Barkin really brings into focus how early our health is shaped not just by biology, but by the worlds we grow up in. She reminds us that children aren't blank slates. They're sensitive, perceptive humans whose bodies and minds respond to the environments around them from the very beginning. And it makes you wonder, just how early does that perception begin? What's happening inside the mind before a baby can speak, move with intention, or tell us what they're feeling? And how can this information help us consider childhood health from the first moments of a newborn's life? That's exactly what we'll explore in today's TED Talk. In it, philosopher and psychologist Claudia Passos Ferreira takes us inside the emerging science of infant consciousness. Drawing on new brain imaging research, she shows how even newborns and possibly late term fetuses are already detecting patterns, reacting to surprise and experience the world in ways far more complex than we once believed. It's a fascinating look at what awareness might feel like at the very start of life and how childhood health and development begins long before any of us can put it into words. And now, here's Claudia Pasos Ferreira's TED Talk.

[Claudia Passos Ferreira]

You wake up in a new world. Your eyes open to bright, confusing lights. Your ears are filled with mysterious sounds. Everything around you feels unfamiliar. This is the reality of A newborn baby. So what is it like to be a newborn? For a philosopher and a psychologist like me, this is a fascinating question. It is hard enough to know what's going on in adults mind. What could be going on in a newborn baby's mind? Do babies have consciousness? The subjective experience of their mind and the world? In adults, consciousness involves experiences of seeing, hearing and thinking and feelings of pain, pleasure and emotions. Do babies also have these experiences and feelings that light up their inner world? So the traditional view is that newborns are passive observers of overwhelming chaos and they may not be conscious at all. It sounds Unbelievable today, but 50 years ago doctors routinely performed circumcision without anesthetic, convinced that newborns immature brain could not feel pain. Since then, developmental psychologists have shown that infants abilities are much more complex than we thought before. But the question of infant consciousness has remained open. One problem is that infants cannot tell us how they feel. They cannot describe their thoughts. And we certainly cannot take a consciousness test. So how can we know what's going on inside their minds? One answer is to measure infants brains. Over the past few decades, the science of consciousness has taught us a lot about the brain basis of consciousness. In adults we found neurosignals that are only active when an adult's conscious perceiving stimulus. Recently, neuroscientists found the same neurosignals in infants brains. These provide powerful new evidence that infants might be actively experiencing their surroundings from a remarkably early age. One innovative experiment in neuroscience is the audible paradigm. This is a test of how our brain reacts when something unexpected happens. I love this paradigm and here how it works. Imagine repeatedly hearing the same sequence of sounds. Beep, beep, beep boop, beep beep, beep boop, beep beep beep boop. Suddenly this familiar pattern is interrupted by a different sequence. Beep, beep, beep beep. Instantly your brain detects the surprise producing a measurable brain signal called the PRE300 wave. This audible response to unexpected sequence of sounds only happens when an individual is conscious. People in deep sleep don't have it. People in commas don't have it. But newborn babies do. The neuroscientist Linda Hann has found that when babies are just few days old, they show the same type of brain activity in response to this oddball sequence of sounds. What this suggests is that right from birth, infants might be truly experiencing conscious perceptions and conscious expectations. Research have also looked for consciousness through patterns of attention in the brain. In conscious adults brain different types of network alternate their activity. When we switch our attention between the external world and our internal thoughts. You know how it is you might be doing this right now. You focus your attention in the speaker for a while and then you daydream for a while. It turns out that infants do the same sort of thing. The neuroscientist Florinacci recently observed the same type of alternation between these networks in newborn brains. This suggests that these switch on the focus of internal and external awareness are present right from birth. There is also evidence from gaps in attention. When our mind intensely focuses on one thing, it usually becomes blind for something that happens immediately afterward. We call this phenomenon attentional blink. Infants experience this phenomenon too, but in slow motion. At three months, old, infants take near a full second to shift shift their attention from one visual cue to another. Compared to adults that can manage this shift much faster. Amazingly, infants show the same type of brain response when this happens, strongly hinting they are active experience their environment. Researchers have also found relevant brain patterns in premature infants, which makes you wonder, could consciousness begin before birth? This is a really important question. I told you earlier how scientists applied the audible test to newborns. Well, they applied the same test

[Elise Hu]

to

[Claudia Passos Ferreira]

late term fetuses around 35 weeks into pregnancy. The results were striking. Fetus shows the same type of brain response as we found in newborns. So even before birth and entering the world, babies seem to be capable to consciously processing sounds, meaning their awareness might develop while they are still in the womb. Of course, these results have potential implications scientifically, medically and ethically. For a start, we now know that when we perform surgery in newborns or premature infants or late term fetuses, we should give them an anesthetic. I know that many of you will be thinking about the abortion debate in that context. I should stress that our strongest evidence is that consciousness requires brain structures that emerge after 24 weeks of gestation, a time when abortion is rare. The new evidence might extend to fetus inter trimester of gestation, but it doesn't extend earlier than that. This is a new understanding. And this new understanding is a work in progress, but might change our picture of newborn babies. They are not passive creatures waiting for consciousness to switch on. They are tiny humans already perceiving patterns and interacting with the world in a meaningful way. As human life unfolds, consciousness unfolds. With it, our sense of ourselves grows and changes. Our consciousness waxes and wanes. Until one day it ends. From the moment we take our first breath to the moment of our deaths, our lives are lit by the flame of awareness. We share this flame with other animals, and we might one day share it with machines. Collectively, our conscious minds illuminate the universe. And though each flame eventually fades, the light of consciousness never disappears. It is rekindled with its new life in the endless dance of existence. Thank you.

[Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider]

That was Claudia Passos Ferreira at Ted in 2025. And that's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening. Tune in next week for the final episode in our mini series on parenting and the science of growing up. We'll turn our attention to adolescence, a stage that can feel especially bewildering for parents and teens alike. We'll look at what's actually happening inside the teenage brain, why emotions run high risks, feel tempting, and connection still matters more than it might seem. If you're living with a teenager, loving one, or still trying to make sense of your own teen years, that conversation is for you. TedHealth is a podcast from Ted, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Send me a message on Instagram hoshanamd this episode was produced by me, Shoshana Ungerleiter and Jess Shane, edited by Alejandra Salazar and fact checked by Vanessa Garcia Woodworth. Special thanks to Maria Lajas, Farrah de Grange, Daniela Balareza, Constanza Gallardo, Tansika Sangmarniwang and Roxanne hi Lash. Wellness doesn't have to be perfect, just personal and how your space makes you feel. Pura's well being collection is thoughtfully crafted to support energy, focus, relaxation and sleep through scent. From soft florals to grounding woods, each fragrance is designed to create small feel good moments throughout your day because sometimes feeling better starts at home. Discover what your space [e-mail] moods

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