Healthy Diet for Teenagers
The Reality - Unhealthy Diet
Looking for more information about healthy diet for teenagers? There's no question that today's teenagers are just about the busiest people on the planet!
So it's not too hard to realize that when you're a teenager on the run, something's got to give. Most teens pay very little attention to proper nutrition and a healthy diet.
What foods do teenagers choose first when they have to make quick choices? Hamburgers, French fries, fried chicken nuggets, and pizza.
All of those items are high in cholesterol, saturated fats, and carbohydrates. And to wash them down, teens reach for sugar-sweetened soft drinks or super-caffeinated beverages.
Nobody's saying it's easy for kids on the run to make good choices. Most of them skip breakfast, because both they and their parents have so little time in the morning.
And for lunch, the schools do a poor job of presenting menu choices that are both tasty and nutritional. Most kids choose French fries and ice cream over soggy vegetables and slimy meat in a heartbeat-not realizing that those food choices are going to cost them heartbeats later in life.
What's the Price Tag Attached to Such Unhealthy Diets?
- Many teens are overweight and are
- already suffering from the early stages of hypertension.
- Elevated cholesterol is so common that some doctors are now recommending cholesterol tests for grade school children.
- More and more teens are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and
- the universal teenage disdain for anything with milk is a surefire recipe for osteoporosis in later years.
Overweight and Underweight Teenagers. What is In Common?
But these poor diets are not producing just overweight teens. Many teenagers, feeling the pressure from what they see on television shows and magazine ads, work hard to stay thin.
The problem is, while it's true that they cut back on what they eat, their food choices are still poor and do not resemble a healthy diet for teenagers.
If an adolescent satisfies her hunger at lunch time by dipping French fries into a milkshake, she might joke that she's getting a vegetable and milk. But what she's really consuming are fats, carbohydrates, and sugar.
As a result, we have both overweight and underweight teenagers -and both types are malnourished!
Behavioral Health Problems
There are also behavioral health problems thrown into the dietary mix these days. Thirty years ago, nobody heard of disorders like bulimia and anorexia. These related illnesses are symptomatic of today's fast-paced society that denies parents and children to spend quality, loving time together. And teenagers hide their symptoms behind the pretext of dieting.
Importance Of Breakfast
One of general idea of a healthy diet for teenagers is that, kids need to realize the importance of breakfast. When there's no time for a quick bite in the morning, teens shrug it off as a way to save calories.
- What they don't realize is that the body will sense that it's being starved, and it will cling to calories that it would otherwise burn.
- The second thing is that studies have shown children who eat breakfast tend to do much better at school than their peers who go without. So skipping breakfast is not a diet shortcut.
The quality of breakfast is very important too. The biggest mistake that a parent can make is letting their kids eat sugary breakfast cereals.
These cereals are basically processed sugar with a few vitamins attached! That’s definitely no good, and results in a yo-yo of energy which gets the kids into bad habits of eating sugary snacks all day. However this can easily be counteracted by making a healthy breakfast every morning. More on healthy breakfast here.
Herbalife Is One Great Path To Take To Set Healthy Diet For Teenagers
It provides an excellent dietary foundation that takes teenagers from wake-up to bedtime. Herbalife supplements come in a variety of formats and flavors, and kids can take them from age 4 and up.
Why is it so important to utilize Herbalife supplements and products in a healthy diet for teenagers? If you insist about healthy diet for teenagers you will pay more attention to what your children and teens are eating. But that's not good enough.
As busy as parents and kids are today, you won't be able to sustain that kind of supervision for longer than about a week, and then the old habits will fall back into play.
And studies about healthy diet for teenagers prove that once teenagers understand why some food choices are bad, and if healthy selections like the ones from Herbalife are readily available, they will make the right choices.
Here is more on Herbalife nutrition products for teens and kids.
Here is little bit fun for you. Enjoy the Songs for a Healthier America. And lets move.
More to read:
How to make healthy foods choices
How to teach kids to eat healthy
What can you do to achieve a balanced healthy diet?
