What can I teach my daughter so that she will have healthy skin for life?

The recipe for keeping skin healthy for life is just keeping her insides healthy. So choose healthy food, exercise, and ditch toxins.

 Let’s start with the stuff your daughter should forgo:

1. Don’t even think about smoking. If you have ever seen the skin of a smoker, you’ll know that lines run deep, especially around the lips.

2. Stick to fluids other than alcohol. Drinking alcohol damages blood vessels. Tiny spider veins in a heavy drinker’s cheeks can quickly become a trail map.

3. Lather up. Wearing sunscreen, even during the winter is a must. Also, avoid excessive sun exposure between 10 am and 2 pm between April and September.

4. And no matter how tired, don’t go to bed done up. Makeup dirt can get trapped in glands in your skin and can lead to blackheads and pimples.

5. Resist the urge to pop. Squeezing those zits (no matter how tempting) can enlarge pores and cause scarring.

 

Enough with the negatives. For healthy skin, and life in general:

1. Eat like a Mediterranean, lots of fruits and vegetables, 100% whole grains, and low-fat, but be sure to include Dr. Mike’s favorite healthy fat, omega-3 fatty acids.

2. Get those 10,000 steps a day.

1)      3. Snooze like you mean it. Six to eight hours of sleep a night is just as important as #1 and #2.

4. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize if you have a moisture defect in your skin (usually doesn’t occur till you are over 50), or when you spend time in very cold areas or in desert climes. New skin cells are replaced every day. Think of your skin’s oils as a film that cells can hang on that helps bridge and build new skin.