Health tips for teens part 1

Health tips for Teens Part 1

Health tips for a teens part I

“You need to eat your breakfast,” “please lose the junk food and eat some real food.”

Take Charge of your health:-

As you get older, you’re able to start making your own decisions about a lot of things that matter most to you. You may choose your own clothes, music, and friends. You also may be ready to make decisions about your body and health.

Making healthy decisions about what you eat and drink, how active you are, and how much sleep you get is a great place to start. Here you’ll learn

  • How your body works— How your body uses the food and drinks you consume and how being active may help your body “burn” calories

Your body needs the energy to function and grow. Calories from food and drinks give you that energy. Think of food as energy to charge up your battery for the day. Throughout the day, you use energy from the battery to think and move, so you need to eat and drink to stay powered up. Balancing the energy you take in through food and beverages with the energy you use for growth, activity, and daily living is called “energy balance.” Energy balance may help you stay a healthy weight.

  • How to choose healthy foods and drinks –
    • Healthy eating involves taking control of how much and what types of food you eat, as well as the beverages you drink. Try to replace foods high in sugar, salt, and unhealthy fats with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat protein foods, and fat-free or low-fat dairy foods.
    • Fruits and Vegetables
      Make half of your plate fruits and vegetables. Dark green, red, and orange vegetables have high levels of the nutrients you need, like vitamin C, calcium, and fiber. Adding tomato and spinach—or any other available greens that you like—to your sandwich is an easy way to get more veggies in your meal.
    • Grains
      Choose whole grains  like whole-wheat bread, brown rice, oatmeal, and whole-grain cereal, instead of refined-grain cereals, white bread, and white rice
    • Protein
      Power up with low fat or lean meats like turkey or chicken, and other protein-rich foods, such as seafood, egg whites, beans, nuts, and tofu.
    • Dairy
      Build strong bones with fat-free or low-fat milk products. If you can’t digest lactose—the sugar in milk that can cause stomach pain or gas—choose lactose-free milk or soy milk with added calcium. Fat-free or low-fat yogurt is also a good source of dairy food.
  • How to get moving and stay active –
    • Physical activity should be part of your daily life, whether you play sports, take physical education (PE) classes in school, do chores, or get around by biking or walking. Regular physical activity can help you manage your weight, have stronger muscles and bones, and be more flexible.
    • Aerobic versus Lifestyle Activities
      You should be physically active for at least 60 minutes a day. Most of the 60 minutes or more of activity a day should be either moderate or intense Aerobic or Zumba Physical Activity, and you should include intense physical activity at least 3 days a week. Examples of aerobic physical activity, or activity that makes you breathe harder and speeds up your heart rate, include jogging, biking, and dancing.

Fitness apps that you can download onto your computer, smartphone, or other mobile devices can help you keep track of how active you are each day.

  • How getting enough sleep is important to staying healthy –
    • Sometimes it’s hard to get enough sleep, especially if you have a job, help take care of younger brothers or sisters, or are busy with other activities after school. Like healthy eating and getting enough physical activity, getting enough sleep is important for staying healthy.
    • You need enough sleep to do well in school, work and drive safely, and fight off infection. Not getting enough sleep may make you moody and irritable. While more research is needed, some studies have shown that not getting enough sleep may also contribute to weight gain. If you’re between 13 and 18 years old, you should get 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night.
  • How to ease into healthy habits and keep them up – 

Changing your habits can be hard. And developing new habits takes time. Use the tips below and the checklist under “Be a health champion” to stay motivated and meet your goals. You can do it! 

Make changes slowly. Don’t expect to change your eating, drinking, or activity habits overnight. Changing too much too fast may hurt your chances of success.

Figure out what’s holding you back. Are there unhealthy snack foods at home that are too tempting? Are the foods and drinks you’re choosing at your school cafeteria too high in fat and sugar? How can you change these habits?

Set a few realistic goals. If you’re a soda drinker, try replacing a couple of sodas with water. Once you are drinking less soda for a while, try cutting out all soda. Then set another goal, like getting more physical activity each day. Once you have reached one goal, add another.

Get a buddy at school or someone at home to support your new habits. Ask a friend, brother or sister, parent, or guardian to help you make changes and stick with your new habits.

  • How to plan healthy meals and physical activities that fit your lifestyle –

Being healthy sounds like it could be a lot of work, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be. A free, online tool called the My Plate Daily Checklist can help you create a daily food plan. All you have to do is type in whether you are male or female, your weight, height, and how much physical activity you get each day. The checklist will tell you how many daily calories you should take in and what amounts of fruit, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy you should eat to stay within your calorie target.

Another tool, called the Super Tracker, can help you plan, analyze, and track both your eating patterns and physical activity. With Super Tracker, you can find out what and how much to eat, track your foods, physical activities, and weight, and set personal goals.

With Super Tracker’s  Food-A-Pedia, you can type in a food or beverage to find out how many calories it has, as well as how much sugar, saturated fat, and sodium. The tool has nutrition information for more than 8,000 foods. You can use Food-A-Pedia to plan meals like the ones below.

Breakfast: A banana, a slice of whole-grain bread with avocado or tomato, and fat-free or low-fat milk.
Lunch: A turkey sandwich with dark leafy lettuce, tomato, and red peppers on whole-wheat bread
Dinner: Two whole-grain taco shells with chicken or black beans, fat-free or low-fat cheese, and romaine lettuce.
Snack: an apple, banana, or air-popped popcorn.

Important Health tips for teens

As a teenager, your body is going through many physical changes – changes that need to be supported by a healthy, balanced diet.

By eating a varied and balanced diet, you should be able to get all the energy and nutrients you need from the food and drink you consume, allowing your body to grow and develop properly. Eating healthily doesn’t have to mean giving up your favorite foods. It simply means eating a variety of foods and cutting down on food and drinks high in fat and sugar, such as sugary fizzy drinks, crisps, cakes, and chocolate. These foods should be eaten less often and in smaller amounts.

Healthy eating tips: Try to limit foods like cookies, candy, frozen desserts, chips, and fries, which often have a lot of sugar, unhealthy fat, and salt.

  • For a quick snack, try recharging with pear, apple, or banana; a small bag of baby carrots; or hummus with sliced veggies.
  • Don’t add sugar to your food and drinks.
  • Drink fat-free or low-fat milk and avoid sugary drinks. Soda, energy drinks, sweet tea, and some juices have added sugars, a source of extra calories.

Did You Know?

Many teens need more of these nutrients:

  • Calcium, to build strong bones and teeth. Good sources of calcium are fat-free or low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese.
  • Vitamin D, to keep bones healthy. Good sources of vitamin D include orange juice, whole oranges, tuna, and fat-free or low-fat milk.
  • Potassium, to help lower blood pressure. Try a banana, or baked potato with the skin, for a potassium boost.
  • Fiber, to help you stay regular and feel full. Good sources of fiber include beans and celery.
  • Protein, to power you up and help you grow strong. Peanut butter; eggs; tofu; legumes, such as lentils and peas; and chicken, fish, and low-fat meats are all good sources of protein.
  • Iron, to help you grow. spinach, beans, peas, and iron-fortified cereals are sources of iron. You can help your body absorb the iron from these foods better when you also eat foods with vitamin C, like an orange.

Other Important points

  • Teens who eat breakfast may do better in school. By eating breakfast, you can increase your memory and stay focused during the school day.
  • Activities add up – Shoot hoops for 30 minutes as part of your 60 minutes of daily physical activity. For Example – how to fit 60 minutes of physical activity into your day:
  • 10 minutes – to walk or bike to a friend’s house
    +
    30 minutes – of playing basketball / Tennis / Squash / Badminton
    +
    10 minutes – of chasing the dog around the yard
    +
    10 minutes – to walk back home
  • Try to limit your screen time to less than 2 hours each day, not counting your homework:
  • Replace after-school TV and video-game time with physical activities at home, at school, or in your community.
  • Turn off your cellphone or other devices before you go to bed. Put them away from your nightstand or bed.

Just one super-sized, fast food meal may have more calories than you need in a whole day. And when people are served more food, they may eat or drink more—even if they don’t need it. This habit may lead to weight gain. When consuming fast food, choose small portions or healthier options, like a veggie wrap or salad instead of fries or fried chicken.

If you’re a typical teenager with parents who always nag you about what you eat, how you eat when you eat or don’t eat, and the amount of junk food you consume, these comments will sound familiar to you. Give your parents a break, they are just doing their job. They want you to eat properly so you’ll develop, be healthy, and keep your moods balanced.

Your body needs certain nutrients to feel well as you go through each day. The most important meal is breakfast, even though it’s probably the most difficult for many teenagers. Breakfast is even more important if you aren’t eating lunch on a regular basis, and are waiting until after school or until dinner to eat.

Be Media Smart :

Advertisements, TV shows, the internet, and social media may affect your food and beverage choices and how you choose to spend your time. Many ads try to get you to consume high-fat foods and sugary drinks. Be aware of some of the tricks ads use to influence you:

  • An ad may show a group of teens consuming food or drink, or using a product to make you think all teens are or should be doing the same. The ad may even use phrases like “all teens need” or “all teens are.”
  • Advertisers sometimes show famous people using or recommending a product because they think you will want to buy products that your favorite celebrities use.
  • Ads often use cartoon figures to make food, beverage, or activity look exciting and appealing to young people

Be a Health Champion :

Spending much of your day away from home can sometimes make it hard to consume healthy foods and drinks. By becoming a “health champion,” you can help yourself and family members, as well as your friends, get healthier by consuming healthier foods and drinks and becoming more active. Use this checklist to work healthy habits into your day, whether you’re at home or on the go:

  • Each night, pack a healthy lunch and snacks for the next day. Consume the lunch you packed. Try to avoid soda, chips, and candy from vending machines.
  • Go to bed at a regular time every night to recharge your body and mind. Turn off your phone, TV, and other devices when you go to bed. Try to get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep each night.
  • Eat a healthy breakfast.
  • Walk or bike to school if you live nearby and can do so safely. Invite friends to join you.
  • Between classes, stand up and walk around, even if your next subject is in the same room.
  • Participate in gym classes instead of sitting on the sidelines.
  • Get involved in choosing food and drinks at home. Help make dinner and share it with your family at the dinner table.

   Quotes for Teens

The starting point of all achievement is Desire

Make it your lifestyle and you will never look back

There is never going to be enough time. You have to make it

The Best way to predict the future is to create it

You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for

Wake up with Determination. Go to bed with satisfaction.

Stop saying I wish. Start saying I Will.

Create healthy habits, Not restrictions

Your Diet is your bank account. Good food choices are good investments.

 

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