Health tips for teenagers

First, the health of adolescents is far more than “not getting sick”. It requires that all three physical, psychological and social adaptability standards are met to be considered qualified.； Second, the causes of 80% of chronic diseases in adulthood (including hypertension, diabetes, cervical spine degeneration and even some tumors) can be found in the lifestyle habits of teenagers. Health management at this stage is the foundation for a lifetime of health.

Last week, I was helping out at a community youth health free clinic. I met a 14-year-old boy in the second grade of junior high school. He has grown to 1.78 meters tall and weighs 20 kilograms. His cervical vertebrae have become straightened in the X-ray. He always complains of headaches and complains of neck soreness after sitting for half an hour while doing homework. His mother looked unconcerned and said, "I'm a kid. He just sits for a long time. What's wrong with him? I'll just wait for two more days of playing after the exam and he'll be fine." ”

There are really many parents who hold this idea. They equate "no organic disease" with health, but ignore many invisible health risks.

Let’s talk about the topic that everyone is arguing about the most now: “Can milk tea be given to children?” I have met two extreme parents. One is that the family does not allow even a little sugary drink. The child secretly drank two cups of Coke at a classmate’s birthday party and was scolded for half an hour when he came back.； The other is that I bought my child a cup of milk tea as a reward every day after school. As a result, I was diagnosed with high uric acid at the age of 12. There are actually different opinions on this in the nutrition community. One group insists on the "zero free sugar principle" and believes that the metabolic system of adolescents is still in the development stage. In addition to providing empty calories, the additional free sugar has no nutrition and will increase the burden on the pancreas. It is best to avoid it completely. ； The other group prefers "moderate tolerance". A complete ban will make children excessively curious about high-sugar foods, making them more likely to engage in revenge eating when they grow up. As long as the amount is controlled, it will be fine. According to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" issued by the Chinese Nutrition Society, it is best for teenagers to consume no more than 25g of free sugar every day, which is about 6 tablespoons of white sugar. A cup of milk tea with normal sugar has about 35-40g of free sugar, so if you are really greedy, it is okay to drink it once a week, but drinking it every day is definitely not enough. This standard is actually very flexible, so there is no need to be obsessed with it.

Not long ago, I was waiting for my cousin to finish school at the entrance of the middle school. I stood there for ten minutes and saw at least seven or eight children walking with their necks so bent that they almost touched the mobile phone screen. Some were carrying schoolbags that were almost half the size of their body, and their waists were bent. Dr. Wang from the Orthopedics Department of the Provincial Children's Hospital told me before that the number of patients with cervical spine problems in the outpatient clinic now has more than tripled compared to ten years ago. Many parents think that "children's bones are soft and they will be fine after just two days of rest." But in fact, if you lower your head for more than three hours a day for more than six months, the curvature of the cervical spine may change irreversibly, just like if you stretch a rubber band to the longest stretch, it will never return to its original shape after a long time. The most exaggerated case I have ever seen was a 15-year-old girl who stayed up until 12 o'clock every day in order to catch up on homework. She lowered her head to do homework and browsed her mobile phone for almost 8 hours a day. In the end, the pain was so painful that she could not even look up at the blackboard, so she had to take a break from school to recover.

Speaking of staying up late, there is another interesting misunderstanding. Many parents insist on forcing their children to sleep for 8 hours a day, otherwise they think it will affect their development. In fact, the sleep needs of different people are really different. I have met a physical education student who sleeps 6 hours a day and is still active during the day. There is also a little girl who does not sleep enough for 9 hours and takes a nap in class the next day. There is no unified standard. As long as the child does not feel sleepy the next day and can keep up with the pace of class, there will be no problem. There is no need to wake the child up in order to get 8 hours, which will affect the quality of sleep.

Nowadays, many people tend to go to two extremes when it comes to teenage psychology. They either think that "if a child has anything to worry about, it's just pretentious", or if the child is slightly depressed, they rush to see a doctor for fear of depression. Data released by the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023 show that the detection rate of depression among adolescents in our country is 17.5%. However, many psychiatrists have also mentioned that there is indeed a certain tendency of "over-diagnosis". Many children are labeled as "depressed" just because they did not do well in exams or had a short-term depression due to conflicts with friends, which instead gave the children negative psychological implications. I once met a girl who was a freshman in high school. Because she couldn't adapt to the new environment after being divided into classes, and she didn't talk much for two weeks, her mother immediately suspended her from school. She also said that her child had depression. It turned out that it was just an emotional problem, but in the end she became more and more closed-off. It took almost a year to adjust. In fact, there are two simplest criteria for judging whether a child has psychological problems: first, whether his daily eating, sleeping, and learning are affected; second, whether he feels pain. If he does not feel pain, don't blindly label the child. Spend more time chatting with him, which is better than anything else.

Many parents also ask me whether they should give their children a bunch of nutritional supplements, such as DHA, calcium tablets, and vitamin tablets. I usually ask first: Is your child usually picky about food? If you can drink 300ml of milk every day and eat one pound of vegetables and half a pound of fruits, you will not be short of meat and eggs. There is no need to take extra supplements. Taking too much will increase the burden on the liver and kidneys. My nephew's mother bought him hundreds of dollars of DHA before. After taking it for half a month, he had a nosebleed. He went to the hospital to find out that he had overdosed. After he stopped taking it, he immediately recovered. Of course, if the child is really picky about eating, or doesn't get much sunlight, then it's okay to supplement with some vitamin D and calcium tablets. This really varies from person to person, and there is no unified standard.

In fact, after all is said and done, there is no universally applicable standard answer to adolescent health. Don’t be bound by the “10 health guidelines that must be followed” on the Internet, and don’t take it completely seriously. It’s better to observe your children’s status more often than anything else. After all, what we want is not a model that meets perfect health standards, but a child who can jump, jump, and be happy, right?