RECESS: Cancer Shaming, Youth Sports Nutrition, and NARP Moms

The Ready State Podcast

Kelly Starrett & Juliet Starrett

Fitness, Health & Fitness

4.9 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to RECESS — our break from the serious stuff to talk about what we’re learning, what’s making us laugh, and how we’re building more play into real life.

In this episode, we talk about everything from terrible coffee decisions and animal attack close calls to youth sports nutrition, cancer shaming in the wellness world, and the Enhanced Games. We also discuss why parents may be unintentionally under-fueling their young athletes, the growing divide between personal health optimization and public health, and a new term we can’t stop thinking about: NARP Moms.

Along the way, we reflect on Caroline’s graduation week, the challenges of raising healthy athletes, the strange culture surrounding performance enhancement in sports, and why compassion—not blame—should guide conversations about health and disease.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Why Kelly’s coffee experiments nearly caused a household revolt
Our take on the Enhanced Games and what they say about the future of sport
Why “cancer shaming” is becoming a troubling trend in wellness culture
What Juliet learned from being diagnosed with cancer at 19—and again later in life
The difference between personal health optimization and public health
Why many young athletes are dramatically under-fueled
How “NARP Moms” might be affecting their kid's sports performance
Why carbs are still king for growing athletes
What fewer kids reading books could mean for the next generation
Reflections on parenting through graduation season

Key Highlights:

(00:00) — Welcome back to RECESS

(00:30) — Juliet’s latest near-animal attack and Kelly’s divorce-worthy coffee experiments

(02:52) — Caroline’s signing day and graduation season reflections

(05:04) — The Enhanced Games: spectacle, performance, and the future of sport

(11:39) — Follow-up on nicotine pouches and European bans

(14:12) — Zach Coen and cancer shaming in the wellness community

(16:20) — Juliet’s experience as a two-time cancer survivor

(18:18) — Brad Ludden and First Descents

(18:55) — Why blaming people for cancer is dangerous and misguided

(20:28) — Introducing the “NARP Mom”, Shannon Mendez

(22:08) — Why youth athletes need dramatically more calories than adults

(24:45) — Carbs, under-fueling, and sports performance

(25:45) — Soman Chainani's new book, Young World — and how the data shows that fewer kids are reading books

(27:33) — Graduation week and sending another kid off to college

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Recess, our weekly break from the serious stuff to talk about what we're learning,
0:08.5	what's making us laugh, and how we're building more play into real life. And I just want to start
0:13.1	by saying thank you to all who've tuned into this and given us really positive feedback.
0:18.1	We've been having a really fun time with this little side quest
0:21.3	called Recess. So thank you guys all so much for tuning in. And those of you who haven't enjoyed
0:26.2	this, help you can have the day you deserve. Okay, we're going to start with a day that you
0:34.5	survived almost near another animal attack. So if you don't know, this will be in
0:40.6	some other episode, Juliet was attacked by a hippo in Africa. In 1997, in the late 1900s.
0:47.0	You're on a canoe safari, attacked by a hippo. I don't mean like there was hippo in the vicinity,
0:50.6	like it punctured the canoe, cut, you got cut by the two.
0:54.4	Don't spoiler alert it. Spoiler alert. Okay. So, you know, we were out for a little
0:58.1	quick bike ride this morning and we were biking uphill. I wasn't paying attention and I almost
1:03.0	crashed. Like the biggest jack rapid I've ever seen was running at top speed maybe away from
1:07.7	something downhill and ran like right in front of my tire and I almost crashed. The noise you made. And I made some weird noise, almost crashed. And then that thing just sailed ahead in front of the trail. So near death experience this morning. The only reason I mentioned that is if you, you know, a lot of people are like, yeah, it's fine. Animals are fine. You're never going to like really get attacked. And I'm like, well, that's what everyone who's never been attacked by an animal thinks. So anyway, I just want to, I want to just.
1:31.4	Thank you. of people are like, yeah, it's fine. Animals are fine. You're never going to, like, really get attacked. And I'm like, well, that's what everyone who's never been attacked by an animal thinks. So anyway, I just want to, I want to just acknowledge you as a survivor this morning, Jack Robert survivor. And then since we're, as we're here, I'm just airing of grievances. You didn't even know this is going to happen, but I'm going to do the airing of grievances. Okay, let's hear it. Hit me. I'm a little scared. I'm obsessed with coffee. I am always in search.
1:50.1	We have a couple of coffees that we love, and I'm always in search of a better coffee.
1:53.7	And recently, you got so mad at me. I'm still mad.
1:58.1	Because I may have made a poor coffee choice.
2:03.1	Okay, it's not just a single poor coffee choice.
2:05.3	You decided to go on this side quest where like every week you'd buy a new bag of coffee
2:10.5	and then put it into our espresso machine.
2:12.2	And just so we're clear, this isn't like, I'm going for like bespoke ass rad coffee.
	...

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