Fad Diets and Teenagers Health
Fad diets and teenagers attitude to food can be a battle for parents. On the one hand fast food and eating out are very much a part of teenager’s lives. And on the other hand parents have the responsibility of ensuring their teenager gets the best possible start for a healthy life. Advice on Healthy Diets for Teenagers• Lead by example. You’ll benefit and so will your whole family if you make healthy meals and get some kind of regular exercise.• Keep your attitude to food positive and healthy. It is something to be enjoyed and shared. • Offer healthy meal and foods. Be relaxed about it; don’t force kids to eat everything on their plate. They’ll eat if they are hungry and there is nothing else to choose from. • Teach your teen the difference between foods that can be eaten all the time and those that are only eaten at times of celebration and special occasions. • Involve them in planning meals, shopping for ingredients, preparing and cooking foods. Teach them a few essential breakfast, lunch and dinner meals in preparation for when they leave home. • Talk about the tricks and manipulation used in advertising so your teen can laugh off their influence and form their own opinion about what they’ll eat and how they look. • Encourage your teenager to be healthy and to feel good about the way they look. Losing a childish shape and gaining an adult one can confuse teens into thinking they are fat when they are perfectly healthy Stock Up with Healthy FoodsYou have little control over what foods your teenager may eat when they are at a friend’s house or out and about.• Make sure the food at home is fresh and nutritious. • Your teenager will look in the cupboards and fridge and complain that there is nothing to eat no matter how much food there is. • Provide nuts, fruit, milk, bread and cheeses for snacks. Don’t have soft drink, fruit juice or chips and candy in the house. These are for special occasions or to eat occasionally. If they are in the house your teen will want them instead of healthier choices.
What Can Influence Diets for Teenagers?Teenage Growth SpurtsBoth boys and girls can grow an amazing amount in a short period of time. They’ll be absolutely ravenous during this time.• Steer them towards healthy sandwiches. • Let them eat (wholegrain, low in sugar) breakfast cereal anytime of the day. • Stock the fruit bowl and fridge with loads of seasonal fruits. • Sometimes it helps to have the fruit cut and/or peeled ready to go to make it more appealing. • When the growth spurt tapers off so should their appetite. Body ImageTeenagers may become very self-conscious about the way they look.• They may copy their friends and favorite celebrities and wish to look like them. • Remind your teenager that growth and changes to their bodies are all part of being a teenager. • Some teens develop earlier than their friends and can feel very self-conscious, likewise, they may be the last to have a growth spurt, or develop breasts, and so on. Talk to them about your own experiences. • Work on having appositive attitude to your own body. • Avoid drawing attention to your teenager’s appearance. Concentrate your praise on things that they do rather than on how they look. You may have called your daughter “my beautiful princess” her entire life. As a teen it will start to grate and sound false. It may even send the message that you only love her if she’s beautiful. Overweight teenagers can feel very self-conscious and pressured about their appearance. Show them you love them just as they are. Encourage them to eat healthily and to build up a habit of daily exercise. Go walking with them, or riding together. Lead by example. Extreme weight loss or fad diets never work in the long term. Forget what you read in the magazines. They just don’t work!!! Fad Diets and TeenagersTeenagers may experiment with diets that are trendy or that they hear about in the media to be more like their favorite celebrities or sporting heroes.These are often too difficult for teenagers to maintain and they quickly lose interest of their own accord. Be careful not to criticize or belittle your teenager for trying them. Be supportive and point out ways to modify the way they already eat if you think it will help. If you feel your teen is being too strict or unhealthy, try working out a meal plan together that incorporates some of the guidelines of the fad diet with more realistic healthy options as well. Teenage SkinTeenagers can be obsessive about acne.It’s a common problem but that doesn’t stop teasing from their peers. Fad diets and teenagers low self esteem can make the problem worse. The best thing your teen can do for their skin (besides not pick at it) is to maintain a healthy balanced diet. No Time to EatTeenagers regularly skip meals to fit in time with their friends, go to an activity or because they are late for school.• Have clear rules about how often everyone must be home for dinner each night. It may be every night, or certain nights of the week. You may say you need at least an hours warning if someone is missing a meal. • Advise that skipping meals does not help with weight loss if you think this may be an added attraction. It makes weight loss more difficult. • Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It sets you up with energy to keep going, study effectively and gets the metabolism going for the day. Doing It My WayIt is common for teenagers to become passionate about all kinds of things as they form their own opinions and learn about the world.• They may decide that they should be a vegetarian, or only eat red foods, or never touch carbohydrates again. • Respect their right to explore this, but put the responsibility on them to alter family meals to suit themselves and to do the research to make sure they have a balanced diet. • You are not running a restaurant and shouldn’t be expected to make up special meals just to suit your teenager. Remember, eating only one type of food like all fruit or all meat is not a safe way to eat. We need a variety of foods to be healthy. This is particularly serious for teenagers as they are building on their future health. For example, the strength of a woman’s bones as she goes into menopause and beyond is determined by her diet as a child and teenager. Fad diets and teenagers health are important for parents to negotiate. Be supportive and keep offering healthy, fresh food.
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