teenhealt's Aeonity Blog - Discover Your Teen's Bad Food Habits

Discover Your Teen's Bad Food Habits	May 20th, 2008 4:38:44 pm - Subscribe
How healthy are your teen's food habits? As a parent, when you send your teen off to school, do you know exactly what his/her diet consists of? Most parents answer I don't know to both of these questions. Once your teen reaches his/her young adult years it becomes more and more difficult to track their food habits. You no longer pack their lunch to school and it seems like between getting dressed and taking an hour in the bathroom each morning, your teen never has time for breakfast anymore. One of the biggest bad food habits which teens are accustomed to today is skipping breakfast. Skipping breakfast often has a negative effect on your teens metabolism, which in the long run can create weight control issues. Leaving the house without breakfast also impacts your teens mood and school performance. Breakfast gives your mind and your body the fuel it needs for the day; hence we call it the most important meal of the day. Another bad food regimen for teens is snacking. Whether at home or at school teens tend to grab chips, cookies, or any other snack food over fruit or vegetables. When your teen is in a lunch line and he/she has an option of grabbing a chocolate chip cookie or an apple, which one do you think your son/daughter will chose? The obvious and often right answer is a cookie. The third bad food habit which teens are known for is fast food consumption. Believe or not, teens today often have very busy and hectic schedules. Between school, extracurricular activities, and part time jobs, teens are often on the road most of the day. Their schedules force them to miss regular meal times and rely strictly on fast food restaurants. With all of these bad food habits, what is it that a parent can do to improve their teenager's diet? If you are at home every morning with your teen, try to entice your son/daughter to sit down with you for a few minutes and eat a bowl of cereal or whatever it is that you know your teen loves to eat for breakfast. Also after school, which is the time when most teenagers snack, be sure that you have some fruit peeled on the table. Sometimes teens will avoid fruit because they simply don't feel like washing it or peeling it. Last, try to eliminate the amount of junk food that you have at home, when your teen does not have a bag of chips to grab, he/she might opt for something healthier. Lauren S. Johnson writes health articles about fitness and nutrition. Some of her favorite passions include studying the medicinal benefits of herbal remedies for antidepressant,diet pills, and hoodia gordonii
mood: twitchy	(1) comments

	peony	May 20th, 2008
	Nah. My teen (younger sister) just ends up whining until she can bother our mom into going to get her a can of soda or a chocolate bar. Now, when she's at home with me, I tell her the whining thing doesn't bother me--eat the food or go hungry, because I don't play that game. (And who would really choose a Milky Way over roast beef & carrots, onions, and whatever those sprigs of green things are, hm?)