Health and Wellness Guide for Teenagers

The core of youth health care is not to follow the trend of drinking wolfberry, taking liver-protecting tablets, or copying adults’ nutritional routines; Get your basic living habits back on track by doing homework, staying up late, and overdrafting on junk food. You don’t need to add supplements. Just do subtracting corrections first. It’s enough to adjust to the developmental rhythm of adolescence with minimal cost.。

Nowadays, there is a fierce debate on the Internet about whether teenagers should take care of their health. One group says that "youth is capital, and you can make whatever you want. Health care is what middle-aged people should worry about." The other group says, "You must take care of yourself as early as possible, otherwise it will be too late for problems later." In fact, both of these opinions are a bit extreme. Those who say "randomly created" may not have seen the health data of today's teenagers. When I conducted a health survey on local high school students last year, 72 out of 100 first-year high school students had problems with cervical spine curvature, 38 had high uric acid, and 12 even had mild fatty liver. They are no longer the "run two laps and nothing will happen" physique 20 years ago. But it’s even more deceptive to talk about “taking supplements as early as possible”. Statistics from Beijing Children’s Hospital in 2023 show that among the 12-18-year-old group, the number of cases of liver enzyme abnormalities and gastrointestinal disorders caused by blindly eating whitening pills, liver-protecting tablets, and Internet celebrity health teas has increased 2.3 times compared with 2019. The liver and kidney functions of teenagers are still developing, and they may not be able to withstand ingredients that adults can metabolize. If they make up for it wrongly, the damage will be more serious than not making up for it. I met a 16-year-old girl who was a sophomore in high school. After staying up late to study questions, she took liver-protecting tablets to "counteract the damage" and drank dehumidification tea every day. As a result, her menstrual period was irregular after three months, and the acne that broke out on her face could not be eliminated. She stopped all supplements and adjusted her daily schedule, and she recovered in two months.

Talking about the least expensive adjustment, many people’s first reaction is to get eight hours of sleep, but there is no absolute standard for this. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine does recommend that teenagers sleep 8-10 hours, but the sports medicine community also has tracking data. For young athletes who maintain systematic training all year round, as long as the sleep quality is high enough, 7.5 hours plus a 40-minute lunch break can fully meet the development needs. A 15-year-old swimming team member of the provincial team I know usually goes to bed at 10pm after training, wakes up at 5:30am, and lies down at the training ground for 40 minutes at noon. All indicators in the physical examination are excellent, which is much better than many classmates who stay up until 1pm and take a two-hour nap at noon to make up for their sleep. I really don’t need to learn about the 478 breathing method and the 90-minute sleep cycle. I tried counting my breaths when I was in high school. The more I counted, the more energetic I became. Later, I simply threw my phone in the living room 10 minutes before going to bed. Don’t turn on the night light. If I couldn’t sleep, I would lie there and listen to the white noise of rain. Instead of forcing myself to “fall asleep immediately”, I would feel sleepy after lying there for more than ten minutes.

The problem of sleeping is solved, but the pitfall of eating is something that most people don’t even know about. Nowadays, parents tend to go to extremes, either stuffing steaks and sea cucumbers into their children's bowls every time, saying that they need nutrition to grow taller, or giving them vegetables and whole grains every day, saying that they need to be light and healthy, but this is actually wrong. For children around 14 years old who are at the peak of bone development, if you eat whole grains every day, excessive dietary fiber will hinder the absorption of calcium and iron. I once met a parent who said that he wanted to give his child a "healthy diet" and eat a vegetarian diet for half a year. As a result, the child was 6 centimeters shorter than his peers, and he was diagnosed with moderate iron deficiency anemia. But high-fat and high-sugar meals are not enough. Currently, the prevalence of hyperlipidemia in my country's 12-18-year-old group has reached 8%. Many children just eat fried chicken and milk tea and think that they are young and have a good metabolism. It will be too late by the time gout and fatty liver come to their doorstep. In fact, there is really no need to make complicated nutritional recipes. The suggestions I give students are all easy to make: don’t drink more than one cup of sweet drinks every day, don’t eat fried food more than twice a week, eat as much vegetables as your fist, and just mix one-third of corn and sweet potatoes into rice and steamed buns. There is no need to pursue perfection. A score of 80 is enough to be better than 90% of people.

Oh, by the way, don’t think that everything will be fine if you have no problem eating and sleeping. Many children now sit longer than 996 office workers every day. There are no accurate opinions about exercise. Some people say that you have to run 3 kilometers every day to be called exercise. Some people say that you can’t finish your homework and you don’t have time to exercise. In fact, you don’t have to be so stuck at all. I used to make health plans for several senior high school students. I didn’t let them take time to run and exercise. I asked them not to lie on the table to answer questions during each class period. They should go out to get water, go to the toilet, chat with classmates, take less than one bus stop to walk home after school, and don’t slump on the chair during class. Keep your waist straight. Just for such a small thing, after a month everyone said that the back pain was reduced by half, and the concentration in class was better than before, and the time for answering questions was not wasted at all. I really have to wait for two hours on weekends to run 3 kilometers unexpectedly. If I sit for 12 hours on weekdays, the effect of exercise cannot offset the damage caused by sitting for a long time.

There is another point that many people overlook. Don’t think that health care is all about the body. Many children have migraines and stomachaches. Even if they go to the hospital to check for any organic problems, they are actually caused by stress. Nowadays, people on the Internet always say that you need to be "emotionally stable" and you should not be anxious or angry, otherwise it will harm your health. Some people also say that you should vent all your bad emotions, otherwise you will get sick if you hold them in. In fact, both of these are correct and neither is correct. Adolescence is an age where hormones fluctuate greatly. It is impossible to be in a stable mood every day. If you fail in an exam and cry, complain to your friends for half an hour, or even argue with your parents, it is better than holding it in. Don't blame yourself for "internal friction" whenever your mood fluctuates. Suppressing your emotions is the most harmful to your body. I have seen too many sensible children who push themselves to be emotionally stable every day, and end up having insomnia all night long. On the contrary, those children who usually make noises and talk when they feel emotional are in much better mental and physical states.

In fact, to put it bluntly, there are really not so many bells and whistles about health care for teenagers. There is no need to follow the trend and buy this or that, and there is no need to set a bunch of rules for yourself that cannot be fulfilled. When I was in high school, I also followed the trend and bought chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea. I stayed up until 2 o'clock to drink a cup. I felt that I was in good health. However, I still had a headache and sore eyes the next day. I later learned that drinking ten cups of wolfberry tea is not as effective as going to bed an hour earlier. These are all pitfalls that I have experienced.

If you really care about your health, just start with the most inconspicuous things. After all, at your age, you are the most energetic. Don't let those messy health routines tie your feet.