Healthy Eating Tips for Teenagers

There is no need to pursue balanced nutrition every day. As long as you stick to the three bottom lines of "don't drink sugary drinks as water, make sure you have 1 egg + 300ml milk + 1 pound of vegetables every day, and don't blindly go on a diet or take Internet celebrity supplements for weight loss", more than 90% of dietary problems can be avoided.

To be honest, I have seen too many parents make this matter too complicated, listing all the dietary taboos on an A4 paper. As a result, the children turn around and buy milk tea and potato chips at the school gate behind their parents’ backs, which makes them more likely to cause problems. Last year, during a nutrition screening at a key high school, 32% of the students drank at least one bottle of sugary drinks every day. One senior boy in high school drank two bottles of iced coffee and one cup of pearl milk tea every day in order to refresh himself. He gained 22 pounds in one semester, and his physical examination showed that his fasting blood sugar was close to pre-diabetes. Regarding "whether teenagers can eat so-called junk food such as milk tea and fried chicken", there have always been two voices in the nutrition circle: the traditional view is that such foods are high in empty calories and should be completely eliminated. ； However, practical experience in clinical nutrition in recent years has shown that a complete ban is more likely to arouse children's rebellious psychology. Many children whose parents strictly prohibit snacks will save their pocket money to buy 10 bags of potato chips at once until they vomit, which in turn induces revenge eating. Now when we do missionary work, we recommend "restriction restrictions": drink milk tea once a week, and have fried chicken with classmates once on the weekend. It's really not a big problem, as long as you don't eat these things as daily meals. Extra added sugar is like "idle workers" in the diet. It doesn't have any nutrients and takes up space. Don't consume more than the amount of a Coke bottle cap in a day, and you will basically avoid any pitfalls.

After talking about the question that everyone is most concerned about, "Can I eat snacks?", there is another misunderstanding. In fact, more parents have fallen into this trap, that is, they always feel that their children are "deficient in nutrition" and desperately buy various supplements. The bookshelves are piled with DHA, calcium-increasing, and brain-boosting pills, and packages costing several thousand yuan can be purchased on demand. There has been no unified conclusion in the academic community regarding whether to provide nutritional supplements to teenagers: one group believes that as long as the daily diet is balanced, all nutrients can be obtained from food, and there is no need to supplement supplements. ； The other group believes that children nowadays have a lot of academic work, use a lot of eyes, and consume a lot of food. If they can't keep up with food supplements, there is no harm in taking appropriate supplements. In one of the cases I have come across, a parent gave their child an Internet-famous "height-increasing supplement" for half a year. In the end, it was found that the supplement contained excessive sex hormones, and the bone age was closed prematurely, but the growth was reduced by 3 centimeters. ； There are also children who are naturally picky eaters and vomit when they eat fish. They followed the doctor's advice and took DHA supplements for half a year, which really relieved their visual fatigue. So there is really no need to go to extremes. Let’s first take a look at how your children usually eat: if they can eat deep-sea fish (salmon or mackerel are both acceptable) twice a week, drink enough milk and eat enough eggs every day, then there is no need to buy any supplements. It is a waste of money. ； If your child is really picky about food, go to the hospital for a formal nutritional assessment first and make up for whatever is missing. Don’t believe those celebrity products on the Internet that boast of being amazing.

In fact, most parents think the problem is complicated. If they really want to implement it into daily meals, there is no need to do so many bells and whistles. Just do the little things that are easiest to do first. For example, if you rush to study early in the morning and don’t have time to cook at home, don’t buy deep-fried hand pancakes smeared with thick sweet sauce. For the multi-grain pancakes at the school gate, ask the boss to use less sauce, add more slices of lettuce, add an egg, and a cup of hot soy milk. It is much better than staying up all morning on an empty stomach. And if you are hungry during evening self-study, don’t share the heart-burning salty crispy noodles or spicy strips with your classmates. Put a small apple or a handful of plain nuts in your schoolbag, or bring a box of sugar-free yogurt to fill you up without making you thirsty. Oh, and there is another small detail that is easily overlooked: children nowadays are in a hurry when eating at school. Many people finish a meal in 10 minutes. Not only is it easy to eat too much, but it also increases the burden on the gastrointestinal tract. Even if you are in a hurry, try to eat for 20 minutes. Chewing slowly is more effective than eating many expensive ingredients.

I once met a girl in the first grade of junior high school. In order to wear a small-size Lolita skirt, she only ate a small apple at noon for three months. Later, she fainted in physical education class and was diagnosed with severe anemia and lost a lot of her hair. There are a lot of contradictions about "should teenagers lose weight?": The older generation always thinks that it is healthy for children to be fatter, so why lose weight? ； Some parents feel that the current aesthetic is that of being white and thin, and they don’t care if their children want to lose weight. In fact, you really don’t have to take sides: if your child is really overweight, don’t let him go on a diet and go hungry, replace the white rice with half of the grains, drink less drinks and run two more laps, and it will gradually come down. ； If your weight is within the normal range, there is really no need to lose weight blindly. Teenagers are growing bones and muscles. The lack of nutrition affects their height and development, and they will regret it for the rest of their lives.

To put it bluntly, when explaining diet to teenagers, the most taboo thing is to list a long list of cold rules, such as what they cannot eat and what they must eat. There is already a lot of academic pressure, and eating something you like is a rare opportunity to relax. As long as you stick to the three bottom lines in the general direction, and occasionally eat a hot pot with heavy oil and spicy food with friends, or secretly drink a cup of full-sugar milk tea, it is really not a scourge. After all, healthy eating is a lifelong habit. It is much more effective to develop a relaxed and sustainable good state than forcing yourself to eat boiled vegetables for half a year and then turning around and overeating in revenge.