Healthy Eating for Teenagers

The core of a healthy diet for teenagers has never been to strictly follow dietary taboos and copy adults' fat-reducing meal standards, but to meet the needs of growth and development, taking into account taste preferences, and achieving the three words of "complete, even, and controlled" - complete nutritional types, even calorie ratio, and controlling high sugar, oil, and salt intake within a reasonable range. There is no need to pursue a 100% "clean diet", and do not equate health with "unpalatable".

Last week, I was working in the nutritional counseling post at the community health service center and came across a very typical example. The boy in the third grade of junior high school has grown to 1.75 meters tall. His mother was afraid that his weight would affect his physical education entrance examination, so she forced him to eat boiled broccoli, chicken breast and brown rice every day, and even choose skim milk. As a result, the boy turned around and saved money for breakfast. After school, he went to the fried skewers stall at the school gate to buy three skewers of grilled sausages and a cup of full-sugar pearl milk tea. Calculated, the extra sugar and oil he consumed every week was more than a normal meal. The last time he measured his BMI, he had already reached the critical value of being overweight.

Speaking of which, the current debate among parents about children's eating is basically divided into two extremes. One type is the "strict control group", who believe that children have poor self-control and any "junk food" will affect their development. There are not even potato chips or candy in the house, and the weight of each meal must be according to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents". ； The other type is the "laissez-faire" school, which believes that it is a blessing for children to grow up and eat. They can give them whatever they like, even fried chicken and burgers. Anyway, "they will naturally lose weight as they grow up."

I’m really not talking nonsense. The data from the 2023 National Student Physical and Health Survey shows that the overweight and obesity rate among teenagers aged 6-17 is close to 20%. At the same time, nearly 15% of children have varying degrees of iron and calcium deficiency. Tracing the root cause, most of them are caused by these two extremes.

My own niece was in the second grade of junior high school last year, and she also loved drinking milk tea and eating fried skewers. I didn’t let her give up completely, so I agreed with her that she would have a “free meal quota” twice a week. She could eat whatever she wanted. During the rest of the time, she was guaranteed to have a cup of whole milk and an egg every day for dinner, and at least one bowl of green leafy vegetables at noon and evening. One-third of her staple food was replaced by whole grains such as corn and sweet potatoes. Don't tell me, the effect is really good. She no longer has to secretly save money to buy snacks, but she won't eat too much at one time. She has grown 6 centimeters in height last year, her weight has been stable in the normal range, and she got full marks in the physical education test.

Oh, by the way, there is another pitfall that many parents have stepped on. They think that to supplement calcium, they need to drink more bone soup. I met a mother two months ago. In order to nourish her child and grow taller, she made bone soup every day and let her child drink two large bowls at a time. As a result, her child gained 12 pounds in half a year. When she checked her blood calcium level, she still did not meet the standard. Instead, her knees hurt when she exercised because she was too heavy. In fact, the calcium content in bone broth is pitifully low, not as much as half a cup of pure milk. All that is floating around is fat. Without calcium supplements, it is easy to gain weight.

In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all recipe, after all, every child’s situation is very different. Just like a boy who loves to play basketball, he exercises so much every day and consumes a lot of calories. There is no need to burn too many calories. It doesn't matter if he eats a popsicle or a bottle of Coke after exercising, as long as he doesn't eat like this every time. ； If your child is already a little overweight, don’t replace all his favorite foods with boiled vegetables all at once. It is too easy to arouse rebelliousness and lead to overeating. Instead, it is better to replace his favorite carbonated drinks with sparkling water with lemon slices, and replace the take-out fried chicken with an oil-free version made in an air fryer. Slowly adjust the taste and become more accepting.

To put it bluntly, arranging a diet for teenagers is like preparing materials for a high-rise building under construction. You can’t just pick the expensive ones, regardless of whether the construction team needs them or not, and you can’t just pile in all kinds of messy materials. You have to adjust according to the growth rhythm - add more calcium-containing foods such as milk and soy products when you are growing up. When you are preparing to stay up late, add some nuts and deep-sea fish to supplement DHA. During the New Year or when your child gets good grades, eating a hot pot burger with him is not considered a "breakthrough" at all.

I have seen too many children who were controlled too strictly by their parents when they were young and could not even eat a bite of candy. After they went to college and escaped from the control, they went to milk tea shops every day and gained 20 or 30 pounds in half a year.； I have also seen children who have learned from their parents to match their diet since they were young. They know that after eating too much oil, they eat more vegetables the next day to balance their diet. When they grow up, they rarely have eating problems. There is no absolutely perfect standard of healthy eating. It is enough to make children eat happily, grow strong, and develop good eating habits for a lifetime.