Latest / Complex Kids, Simple Solutions / Kamy Moussavi — The Hidden Link Between ADHD, Dopamine, and Food
Transcript
- Michelle Choairy: Welcome to Complex Kids Simple Solutions, the podcast for parents raising complex and neurodivergent kids who are doing their best in systems that don't always make things easy. I'm Michelle Shoayde, founder of Special Education Concierge, a mom to a complex kid, a speaker, and an advocate. This space isn't about perfection. It's about real life, the hard days, the small wins. the moments where you wonder if you're doing enough, and the moments where you realize you are. Here we talk honestly, share practical insight, and simplify what feels overwhelming, one conversation at a time. You are your child's hero. Hi everyone, welcome back to Complex Kids Simple Solutions. This week, I am really excited because we haven't had anybody talk about this on the podcast before, so this is gonna be fun. So stick with me. This is Commie and I'm gonna let him talk a little bit about what he's doing and how he got to where he is, because I think this is a super interesting conversation that we're gonna have. Welcome, welcome Commie. Thank you, Michelle. Thanks for the opportunity. Yes, for sure. So I'm excited because like I said, we haven't had anybody come on the show and really talk about food and how it affects kids. so let's let's dig in. Tell us what you're doing, where you came from. Why did you get to do, you know, doing this and founded Step Together? So I'm excited to hear all about that. So it's a very long story. Okay. Make it brief for people listening and to make the connection between ADHD and food. I grew up as a kid who had undiagnosed ADHD. I was inattentive, always in my head, always chewing on something or just like not paying attention. I grew up with my brother always telling me that it's hard to talk to me because I'm always just distracted. Yes. Another one of my symptoms was I constantly overate. I was the fat kid who just couldn't stop eating and my mom kept feeding me and also felt guilty about it because she didn't know, was I really hungry or was I just asking for food because that's how I get my pleasure. I grew up as that kid and I grew up to be an engineer. I had a whole career in Silicon Valley before this, but I looked back on my own journey and I realized that There was so much that I didn't know about what was causing my excess weight and all the ways that my mom tried to help me and myself, even as an adult, to try to help myself. I always thought it was simple. You just eat less and move more and the weight comes off. On the surface, it is simple like that, right? But isn't that what all doctors tell you? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Less calories, calories in, calories out. Yeah, on the surface, As an engineer, it's a very simple equation. Thermodynamics, you burn calories and you eat calories. If you eat less than you burn, you lose weight. And I went into episodes of like I would run marathons, I would lose like 30 pounds, then I would gain 60 pounds back within the next couple months. my gosh. I'm sure a lot of people listening have experienced something similar. ⁓ yeah, yeah for sure. So then the question is why do we fall into these patterns? underlying cause of excess weight is something that most people don't talk about. And it just happens that ADHD is one of them. what we see now, now what I do is I operate this company called Step Together, where we specialize in children's weight loss, but focusing primarily at the root cause of it, not the symptom of the weight. And what we noticed, and this was completely by accident, about 80 % of the children in our program have ADHD. And the ones that don't, most likely it's undiagnosed. And often the root cause of the AD, she's something even deeper. It's either a genetic root cause or an emotional root cause, which has an interesting split between boys and girls and the inattentive and hyperactive type. I'm sure your audience has heard these terms before, but to me it was a complete surprise because looking back, I had no idea. I started this company without the awareness of ADHD really being such a strong component of it. But there's strong evidence, there's studies way back from 2013 showing that children with ADHD have a predisposition to be four times more likely to be overweight as kids? That's a pretty big number, four times. and you would think that if they were diagnosed and they were on meds because they suppressed the hunger, that it wouldn't be that big of a gap four times more. So ⁓ my son, he takes, he takes Ritalin for his ADHD and he doesn't, most of the time he doesn't want to eat, but maybe there is a difference between the ones that are being treated for ADHD and the ones that don't even know that they have ADHD, right? There's definitely that, but there's also this. It's not necessarily the case that you have ADHD and you go to food for your dopamine. ADHD is just your brain has a deficit of dopamine either in processing or just as a baseline and you need external sources of dopamine to compensate for it. And then your genetic predisposition to where you get your dopamine is what comes into play. You know how some people they get a lot of satisfaction from alcohol but some people it's like barely does anything for them? Yes. The same thing happens for food. Some people get a lot of satisfaction, some people get almost nothing. There's a lot of behavioral conditioning that's in place to that too. A lot of people, their experience of food is love, cultural celebration. Some it's emotional association with anxiety, fear, guilt, stress. They go to food. Right? So it's often the case that parents come to us and... Like it's not the ADHD itself, it's a combination of you have ADHD, maybe you're not being treated for it, and we don't really strongly recommend stimulation either. It's really understanding the brain and figuring out ways to compensate for the dopamine deficit in healthy ways that are holistic, typically what we recommend. But then if your child is predisposed to food for the dopamine, you have to be careful, because that's when it can fall into food addiction, going for sugar and processed food and constantly eating without even having it. You know, people say they don't have an off switch. Yeah. ⁓ I see that in my son, especially when he is off the meds like at night or on the weekends when we, and then the sugar craves cravings are all over. ⁓ we really have tried to keep those foods out of the house, but he will find like the, you know, the honey roasted Cheerios, the honey cheer, you know, or any, any of those types of things. And so we try to keep it to a minimum, but he, he, you know, anything that has any kind of sweetness in it. The other day I woke up and I look, he had gone through the honey and had squished it into a, a spoon and he was eating honey, pure honey. And I'm like, What? It's probably because he didn't find anything else that was sugary in the house. So he's like, okay, well, this is sugar. So maybe I should do this. ⁓ But I can see the cravings. And I have those cravings. And, you know, and I'm an adult. So I think that there is like ⁓ a relationship with food that we create. Yeah. And I think that what you're What you're doing is trying to catch that when they're young so they don't have to deal with it as much when they're older. Is that right? 100%. There's so many things that you said that I would like to dig into. Sure. The main one is ⁓ ADHD is very hereditary. So it's very likely that I'm sure you've seen this. Children who are diagnosed with ADHD, the parents are like, you know what? Sounds a lot like me. Yes. and then they go get a diagnosis as well. And then you see that it's often something we do in our intakes when parents come to talk to us, we ask if there's any history of addiction in the family, whether it's food or anything else, because that's a clear signal that it's a brain that needs dopamine from external sources. And some parents come to us, they themselves struggle with weight, maybe some don't at all, and they have issues with shopping, working. too much exercising. Some parents are like, yeah, I exercise three hours a day and I'm fine. But it's like, that's their addiction. That's where they get the wish. was me. I do everything else besides working out three hours a day. I promise you that I will find something else to do. I'm sure it's exactly being a parent to like feeding the three hours. ⁓ you mentioned that your son goes to the honey. I still to this day, if I don't catch myself and there's a jar of honey on a counter, I'm going to be deep diving into the honey. Interesting. Yeah. It's not something that really goes away. I'm not treated right now for my ADHD with stimulants. So my brain is still looking for that dopamine. What I do is nowadays I get it from work. This is what I do for basically 12 hours a day. So I my dopamine from a healthier source. You can argue whether it's workaholism or not. This is something that we try to get parents to really understand. You have to be careful as to what you expose your child to and the expectations that you have of them to be able to control themselves. my mom as a kid, even the cereal that you mentioned, the Honey Nut Cheerios, if she had protein cereal in the house or any kind of cereal, I'd finish off the entire bag in one shot with a tall, like huge glass of milk. And that's what I would do. I would watch TV and eat the whole box of cereal. Yeah. And parents often expect their kid to be able to stop themselves. They can't. What should they? Should they be able to? Well, that's a hard thing, right? Sometimes you can if they're young enough. But like my son, he will hide it. He will take it in the middle of the night and hide it in his room. We know where his little spots are. But You can control what's in the house though. Right? I don't know that you can control so much how much they eat. My house, I will tell you this, it's a struggle for food. So usually they, I make dinner every night and I try to make something healthy. So we always have a protein, we have a vegetable. and then we'll have a starch, maybe potatoes or something like that. So we keep it balanced, right? But I can't get them to eat that. But then three hours later, they're waking up and going and trying to find anything else in the house, protein bars, protein shakes, whatever they can get their hands on, then they're eating that. it's a, it's all, it's. Being a mom and trying to get the kids to actually eat, to eat or to not eat, I think that those are the two extremes that some parents go through. Here, it's like trying to get them to eat something healthy. That's where I encounter the problem. So what you're talking about is actually very close to what we recommend as meals. The protein, fiber, and complex carbohydrates. Very simple, right? Doesn't have to be too complicated. And then children who are looking for dopamine from food primarily and it's not true hunger, they're going to violently reject that. Like, mom, that's not, like, I don't, I don't, why would I eat that? That's not food. Cause they're not looking for food really. If they were really hungry and this is something that's, hard to accept, especially as a mom, cause children know exactly how to make you feel guilty for it. But if they're really hungry, they would eat that. But what they're looking for, if they're looking for dopamine. That kind of food just does not give much of it. ⁓ It's digested slowly. It's not gonna give the spike that they want. So what they really want is anything that is refined, anything that is either a combination of salty, crunchy, fatty, or sweet. Or if you have a combination of all of them, that's a huge dopamine spike. So something even like a protein bar. What do you do with that? Is it healthy or is it? I don't know. I don't know. Now I'm questioning myself because I thought that there's protein in there, but there's also sugar, right? Probably some kind of, it might not be refined sugar. It might be, you know, some of the fake stuff that's out there, but there's going to be some sugar. So I don't know. You tell me. So it has much less to do with the actual ingredients, but more about how it hits your brain. Right. So even something like parents ask me, is like a bag of chips made with olive oil, potatoes and sea salt, is that something that I should give my kids as a healthy alternative? It's like better than normal chips that is full of preservatives and additives, but it still has that same response for the kid's brain. They eat the salty, crunchy chip and their brain lights up and still nuts. It's still going to be addictive. Same thing with the protein bar. Could be the best ingredient. It could be, you know, the RX bars that people eat. It's like four eggs or- ingredients or something like that, yes. Even that, because it is refined and it is essentially absorbed really quickly, as a kid I could eat 20 of those in a row. No problem. it really has to do with how quickly it spikes your sugar or how much it gives you that satisfaction and how much dopamine you get as a result. And if you notice as a parent, I'm not saying to be restrictive about it, but if you're noticing that your kid is eating something like that in excess, all it means is that they're not looking for actual hunger or satisfying their biological hunger. They're looking to fill up dopamine. And instead of restricting them, make sure that at least in the transition period in the beginning, it's not in the house. So they're not going for it with basically zero limit. Do something like that outside of the house. If you want have ice cream, go on a walk for 20 minutes so that your child's brain learns that, I have to do some effort to get that spike of dopamine. And then you're going to see they're maybe not even going to want it that much. And in the house, when you notice them that, just for yourself, Michelle, if your son wants food or is asking for something and they're not accepting the meal that you're giving, try to see if they're accepting anything else that gives them dopamine. There's typically five sources of dopamine, playing, creativity, physical touch, socialization, and exercise. So something as simple as like just running around and playing tag when he's asking for a snack. Interesting. Yeah. And then slowly over time, what we want to do is... teach their brain that when they have that sensation that they get in their brain and their brain has done such a good job of telling them that that's hunger, it's going to slowly rewire to say, Hey, maybe this could be met with some other activity. Yeah. ⁓ I like that. So you, what you're trying to do is to trick kind of trick the brain, right? So it's not necessarily food that you're looking for. You're looking for something else. And so here, let's get it from somewhere else. Exactly. Very simply, the brain is looking for dopamine. It has learned that the lowest barrier to entry, the path of least resistance is food. So it's going to rely on that and it's going to trick you and tell you that you're hungry. Whereas it's really just like a, you probably experienced this yourself. There's like a tension in your brain. There's like a sensation of restlessness and you're going to food for it. Whereas that could be met with other things. The unfortunate thing is, and the reason why you have to change the environment first is if the path of least resistance is in the house, your brain is going to take the path of least resistance. for sure. Every time. Every time. Especially with kids. They figure it out really, really quick what that path is. They're smart. They're smart. So, you you're... We're talking about this and we're talking and we know that this is an issue. We know that this is a problem, right? And it's a growing problem. So what is it that you are doing at Step Together? How does it look when you're treating a kid or when you're helping the family? What does this look like in your business? So first of all, parents are coming to us because they noticed that their child is that they're getting bullied or something has happened or maybe the doctor is telling them, hey, you have to do something. This is getting out of control. And they're coming to us thinking that we are going to tell their kids what to do. And this is often surprising to parents. We rarely interact with the children. We work primarily with the parents. And they're like, what? Why is it focused on me? I'm looking for some help with my kid. But what we have to realize is, and this is something that my mom, ⁓ I wish she had realized when I was younger when she was putting me in Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers or all these programs, if the home environment doesn't change, if the relationships that parents have with themselves and each other and food or any other addictive substances doesn't change. your son or your daughter is going to go back to their default, which is what they are today. So we approach it from the entire family and we work with parents to address the nutrition. So the things that make food addictive, the dopaminergic needs, the other kinds of things that you have to be careful about, such as your gut microbiome. and how that affects your mood and you're essentially like sometimes we have ADHD symptoms just because of your gut being in imbalance. You've probably heard of this a lot, the red dyes and all these things. Yes. Then we address technology addiction, sleep, movement and emotional regulation. Things like anxiety, grief, deeper traumas, ADHD. And often what we see is once you address the suppressants, such as the food and the technology, the emotions come out. So whatever's underneath that ADHD, sometimes parents tell us after two, three months into the program, they're like, why is my daughter telling me that she's lonely for the first time? They probably always were. Yeah. But they were suppressed. Yeah. So this is, ⁓ So you treat the parents so they can help the kids, right? Right. It helps everybody in the family. Like all people are coming along. And the most important thing is the child is not about them. So they never feel like there's any issues with them being the problem to solve and their self-esteem doesn't flare up. which often is the case when you your kid to the doctor or the nutritionist. They're like, oh shit, I'm the problem. For sure. So there's gotta be, so, know, when you extinguish something, when things change, there's gotta be something like this, the time where it's going to be really hard for them. So in the beginning for the first few weeks when you're changing things, when you're restructuring things in the house, it's probably a really hard time for the kids. I'm glad you bring that up because it is and we have to do the transition very, very slowly because if your child is using food as their primary source of dopamine or technology, like I'm sure you've experienced this as well, you take the screens away and there's a whole battlefield, right? Yes. Sometimes the deeper emotion is something that is very painful. So if they're masking something and you take it all right away, sometimes parents get excited. They're like, okay, we're going to throw everything out. Nothing, no junk food in the house, no screens. We're going to go back to the 18th century. Then the child becomes really, really agitated, sometimes even suicidal. So you have to expect this. Sometimes the addiction is strong and the effects of withdrawal are also really strong. And it's like maybe dramatic here to talk about food as being so addictive, but sometimes it is. The kind of children that come to our program, sometimes their life has been so traumatic and they have only food to rely on. Yeah. That's sad when you think about it, right? This is just, I mean, how awful is that? I have a friend who she's really gone out of her way to, she's been on the show and she talks about screens and times on screens and how that is affecting the kids these days. And we went, we took them out ⁓ completely. we went, bandaid ripped off. So, and we, I mean, it was just, it was hard. It was hard. And we took out all the iPads. took out, I mean, we literally went on no screens. They could watch their TVs, but they couldn't have their iPads with them. And that was really hard. That was really hard. For two weeks, the behaviors went all the way up to here. It was crazy. But then after two weeks, things started getting better. my son's behavior was better. Like he wasn't breaking things. He wasn't doing things that he used to do because I think that he didn't, he wasn't watching them online. And I actually have to tell you that just today I found some stuff broken in the backyard and I'm like, this is it. It's time to do the, the, the bandaid again, I think. So, but, it's probably about the same thing with food, but I see what you're saying that it has to be done slowly so they don't go into this, you know, cycle of, of what, you know, going through what they're going through. So how do you tell them, how do you explain to the parents how to do this? It's case by case. You know, we don't have a one size fits all solution. When we work with families, we pair them with someone who's very close to their child's personal experience. So everyone who works at Step Together has personally experienced childhood obesity, and they have their own unique flavors of flavors of what was the root cause. And we're trying to pair them as closely to their child's specific case. And then we work with them for four months, hand in hand, every single day to make the changes. Right. And we, we expect a lot from the parents in terms of self-reporting. This is a shock to a lot of parents where we ask them to send us the food that the parents themselves eat, not the children. Right. And often they have that same smile on their face. They're like, Oh, I got called way behind. So you're making this about me. Is that what you're saying? I'm coming here for you to help my kid, but it's really about me. And it's a lot about not even just the subtle things that you model for them. A lot of parents come to us and their favorite method of emotional regulation is a glass of wine at the end of the night. I don't know anybody who does that. ⁓ Right. So then what the child learns is, we can use substances to cope with emotions. And this is far beyond the logical side. It's completely emotional. Like you can rely on external substances when things get tough and food is just one of them. What's any different? And then getting softened, it's It's baffling. Sometimes we have children themselves say, is my mom stopping the alcohol part of the program? We're like, ⁓ why do you say that? They're like, I have to give up all my treats. Why doesn't she? Yeah. Do what I, yes. That is, that is such a good point because really we expect, we have different expectations for our kids than we do for ourselves. We feel like, okay, you know what? I'm a grownup. I have a lot more pressure on me than these kids do. So I deserve that glass of wine at night. Or, you know, I'm going to drink that beer when I'm watching the game tonight on TV so I can relax. And it's so true because that's how it is. And, but then we expect them to give up their iPads when we're still locked into our phones, right? There is, I can see where you're treating the parents more than the kids because it really, they learn everything from the parents. And the beautiful part of this is, sorry, no, no, no, go ahead. Parents after a month in they're like, I'm so surprised. My child is just changing on their own. I don't have to say anything. Yeah. That's great. So do you do this online? Do you do in person? Where are you located? How does it work? So it's entirely remote and we're based in California, though we take families from all over the US. ⁓ And it's entirely through, have an app with the for the program. We also do our sessions over zoom and it's the parents find that very accessible because it's, you know, it's hectic. Even going through nutritionist office to just have a weekly session is Sometimes impossible. We work evenings, weekends. We're really there to meet the parents where they are. But the most important thing is that both parents join the sessions and they will do the work together. You have to have a consistency when it comes to anything that's going to be family related. No doubt. Yeah. Okay. Well, I always do this at the end, like towards the end of the show. And my question is always, out of everything that we've talked about here today and what you know, what is the most important thing that you want the parents who are listening to come out of this podcast and thinking about? What do you want them to know? If you have a child who has excess weight, or even if you know any adult in your friends circle or family that has excess weight, look at it as the symptom and ask yourself what could be the deeper underlying cause of it. And often underneath it is the lot of pain. Right? So you have to address what's underneath. Whether it's pain or boredom or something very simple like you've learned patterns from your own parents on how they treated you with love and now you're passing it down to your kids, it's often much more complex than we think. Otherwise, we wouldn't have 60 % of the children in the US being overweight. It's not that simple. And then on the other hand, give yourself some grace because there's billions of dollars poured into the food industry and the tech industry to make these things as addictive as possible. and you're the only line of defense that the kids have. So hopefully what you heard here gives you a better lens of how to look at this problem completely. Yeah. I love that because we do need to be better parents. We have to be better examples for our kids. I have to do that. No doubt. So thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. ⁓ We will have all of your information on the notes. So if you have a child who's struggling with weight, reach out and reach out to them. It sounds like this is a great program. And I think that we definitely need to be treating the symptoms, the not the symptoms. need to treat the root cause of what's happening in their lives. So Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you, Kami, for being here. And we will see you guys next week. Bye bye. Thank you very much. Before you go, take a deep breath. You don't have to solve everything today. You don't have to have it all figured out. If this episode helped you feel seen, grounded, or a little less alone, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss future conversations. And if you ever want a deeper support, Special Education Concierge is here when you're ready. one step at a time, one decision at a time. You are your child's hero. I'll see you next time.