To Your Health:

When You're A Teenager

By Nancy DiMarco, Ph.D.

Let me share some common trends among our teens today that may help explain why their dietary choices are less than optimal.

Today's teens have more money, responsibility and freedom than when their parents were teens. Part-time jobs and after school activities often conflict with the traditional dinner hour, giving adolescents more opportunities to make their own food choices. Teen nutrition also has been affected by the restructuring of the American family. With the rise in single-parent households and an increase in both parents working, teens are frequently left to their own devices for cooking and eating.

Add the societal pressure for girls to be thin and adolescent boys to be “buff,” it is no wonder that our young people are woefully confused about what they should be eating. In 1999, 56.5 percent of 9^th grade girls were attempting to lose weight compared to 30 percent of the boys, according to the Centers for Disease Control. When the girls were surveyed in 10^th grade, 60.2 percent were trying to lose weight.

Food Choices

In a study by the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (JADA), 141 teens from 7^th to 10^th grade were surveyed about their food choices. The most important factors were taste, appearance, smell, and foods being easy to make with no clean up involved. The availability of food at school and at home, parental influences, health benefits and social interactions involving food were of secondary importance.

Eating healthy foods was not a priority for most of these students, and fruits, vegetables and dairy products were not perceived as being as tasty or convenient and as being more expensive than other food choices. Additionally, the places where teens eat, such as school and fast food restaurants, do not promote or tend not to even sell fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

The end result, according to another JADA study, is that 80 percent of children do not meet the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) for vitamin E; 50 percent for folate; 33 percent for magnesium; and 20 percent do not meet the EAR for phosphorus. In addition, the majority of girls between the ages of 9 and 18 had calcium intakes well below adequate levels.

The crisis: Dietary habits formed in childhood persist into adulthood. The poor food choices teens are making today will continue when they are adults and they will reap the health consequences, such as heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.

Tips For Making Health Eating Cool:

• A child who arrives at school without breakfast has not eaten for 12 to 16 hours. A nutritious breakfast goes a long way in providing brainpower until lunch. Offer choices in the morning that have high nutritive value, such as a smoothie — using low fat milk or yogurt, fresh or frozen fruits and a bit of sugar or honey — made in a blender. Left over smoothies can be refrigerated and make an excellent after school snack.

• If cereal is a favorite in your home, add fresh or dried fruit (lots of fiber, vitamins and minerals), wheat germ (lots of vitamin E) plus low fat milk (lots of calcium). A favorite in our home, when my children were young, was adding a scoop of ice cream to hot cereal. It's amazing how quickly oatmeal disappeared. As young adults, they still ask for it.

• Create your own fruit and yogurt parfaits with layers of vanilla yogurt, fresh strawberries and blueberries, bananas, peaches or whatever you have on hand, and sprinkle with granola. Add a long handled spoon and kids will think they're eating in a fancy restaurant!

• Leftover pizza, a glass of milk and orange slices can be an excellent breakfast. It's easy to prepare and more nutritious than other fast food breakfasts.

• Freeze 100 percent juice in ice cube trays. It makes a great after school snack.

• Microwave popcorn is always a hit.

• Cheese and crackers, peanut butter and crackers or apples, celery or carrots all boost essential nutrients and fiber intake.

• Eliminate nutrient poor foods such as chips, sodas and cookies. Offer them on occasion instead of making them staples of a teen's diet. If it's not around, it isn't consumed.

• Limit visits to fast food restaurants and introduce your teens to sub shops, soup and salad cafés and “natural food” establishments.

• Re-establish dinner time with your family as a non-negotiable entity and make it attractive and interesting so teens want to be a part.

• Invite suggestions for dinner from your teen and allow them to do the planning, shopping and cooking — with your help — of course.

Dr. Nancy DiMarco is a research professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, the nutrition coordinator for the Institute for Women's Health and coordinator of the master's program in Exercise and Sports Nutrition at Texas Woman's University. She can be reached at ndimarco@twu.edu.

For Further Information Contact:

Roy Kron
Director of News and Information
Tel: (940) 898-3456
e-mail: rkron@twu.edu