Getting dirty is not only good, it's essential. We're all focused on the screens and the kids are on computers too much of the time, and that's all true. But the bigger issue is they're not outside getting dirty, interacting with nature. Because after our initial journey through the birth canal, those of us who are lucky enough to be born vaginally, that's when we get colonized with a mother's good bacteria.

And that forms the beginnings of our foundational microbiome. So after that, we then need to get those microbes from nature, from food, ideally that's grown in dirt, and from getting dirty ourselves, from being out there with grass and trees and all of it. And we see that kids who are born in the hospital via C-section, who don't get the benefit of coming through the birth canal, they are colonized with hospital-acquired staph instead of the mother's healthy bifidobacterium lactobacillus.

And interestingly, Chris, for years after birth, they have higher rates of allergies, of asthma, of autoimmune disease, and of obesity.