Healthy eating for teenagers

Teenagers’ diets should sustain growth and promote good health. During this time, a number of physiological changes occur that affect nutritional needs, including rapid growth and considerable gains in bone and muscle (especially in boys). This is also a time when teenagers begin to develop real independence from their parents and they often choose food in response to peer pressure or as an act of defiance against parents. As a result of a nutrition survey, the average consumption teenagers reveal that they eat a lot of saturated food, calories, sugar and salt, while starchy carbohydrates and fiber is low in their diets.

Iron deficiency is one of the most common nutritional. Rapid growth, coupled with a fast lifestyle and poor dietary choices, can result in iron-deficiency anemia. The survey also highlighted that teens had a calcium intake below the recommended level, which has serious implications for their future bone health. The teenage years are very important to development of the bones. The richest source of calcium in most people’s diet is milk and dairy products.

Ideally, foods in the diet should be rich energy and nutrients: plenty of starchy carbohydrates (bread, rice, pasta, breakfast cereals, chapatis, couscous and potatoes); plenty of fruit and vegetables; two to three portions of dairy products (milk, yoghurt, cheeses); two servings of protein (meat, fish, eggs, beans and pulses); not too many fatty foods; limit sugar-rich food and drinks; and an important point would be take regular exercise.

A consequence of this lifestyle is that women are dissatisfied with their weight. And another important consequence caused by fatty and sugary foods is acne.

In my opinion, I agree with this news because it’s all true. Apart of the survey, all of us, teenagers, eat what we like if you can’t look fat or if it’s harmful for yourself. In my case I try to do a healthy diet in my way, or making my own meals to keep a fit body and a healthy way of life, but sometimes the wishes can be much more than your strength, so I also eat fatty food, but not a lot. I sometimes eat sugar and carbohydrates because I’m a person who likes food and sample it. However, it’s so difficult for a busy person, even if this person studies, like me, and has a busy life. I try to combine the school, the diets, the exercise, the private life, etc., but sometimes you can’t and you eat what you want to vent you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/nutrition/life_adolescence.shtml