Teenagers often think that rather than spending time thinking about what to eat for good, they want to think about the worries among school, homework and friends. They just eat delicious things they like without caring if it brings benefit or not. However, healthy eating habits are essential and bring unexpected benefits for teenagers.
Benefits Of Healthy Eating Habits
Because teenagers often do not care about what they put into their body, helping them be aware of the benefits of healthy eating habits is very important. Today, there is much information available online and offline showing the disadvantages of unhealthy eating habits as well as the advantages of healthy one, but teenagers often choose unhealthy foods every day. They just see that these are easier and more delicious to give in and eat prepackaged frozen meals or fast foods. Most they simply are not aware that eating healthy can have positive effects on their day-to-day life. In addition, many parents are too busy with their work to control over what their children eat. Therefore, teenagers start to spend more time eating out with their friends than at home, and cheap fast food restaurants are usually the chosen places. Healthy eating habit is the best way to give teenagers the best start, both in their attitude and health, for the future life. That is the reason why today I am glad to share you 10 benefits of healthy eating habits that helps teenagers change their mind about their eating habits to get better appearance, health and life.
1. Help In Proper Growth And Development
Teen years are the period at which the body grows and develops fastest. However, the growth rate is different in each teenager that it depends on many factors, including eating habit. Helping teenagers meet their full potential height is one of the benefits of healthy eating habits. A healthy eating habit provides plenty of required nutrition and energy such as protein, iron, zinc and calcium for teenagers for their processes of growth/ development to happen properly. Including lean red meat, fish, poultry, bean, low-fat and nonfat dairy foods in their diet might help teenagers gain several inches in several months. A large amount of vitamins and minerals are also essential for proper growth and development, so it is very important for teenagers to get healthy foods with a variety of nutrients.
2. Better Grades
Healthy eating habits including eating enough meals a day, especially breakfast may help teenagers do better in school. Eating a healthy breakfast is proven to help improve the attention spans and concentration for students by increasing their cognitive function and making them more alert. As a result, they tend to do better on their tests and exams. If teenagers do not eat enough breakfast, they may be hungry or low blood sugar, leading to fatigue and poor concentration. Therefore, to optimize the capacity to learn at school, teenagers should ensure to be filled with healthy food on a regular basis. Even if teenagers do not have much time, they can still get a quick healthy breakfast with milk, fruit smoothie, eggs or whole wheat bagel with peanut butter to get all benefits of healthy eating habits.
3. Boost Energy
One of the best benefits of healthy eating habits is to increase energy, so teenagers can be active all day long. Teenagers are often very inquisitive, adventurous and like to participate in entertainment activities as well as sports that require lots of energy supply. Junk foods, French fries, greasy burgers and pizza may taste good and be favored by most teenagers, but they may be the culprit of fatigue and lethargy. In fact, eating these foods overloads your system with empty calories that make your body feel sluggish and may not run efficiently. In addition, you will be lack of energy because these foods do not give you the proper minerals, vitamins and other nutrients that are needed to keep you alert and active. Eating foods high in sugar and saturated fats also reduces your energy. In contrast, rich-carb foods such as vegetables, fruits and whole grains are the better and healthier choice to improve a teenager's energy levels. Moreover, a balanced diet including lean meats, whole grains, leafy greens and low-fat dairy products provides vitamins that you need to utilize and manage the energy from the food they eat.
4. Keep Weight Under Control
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity rates in teenagers have tripled since 1980. This may be because teenagers tend to eat calorie-dense foods such as pizza, sweets and soda. Besides, because of the multitude of hormonal changes through puberty, their weight tends to fluctuate greatly. Eating wrong in this period, teenagers can be excess weight gain. One of the benefits of healthy eating habits for teenagers is helping them maintain a healthy weight. With healthy foods such as vegetables, fruits and whole grains, teenagers may easily keep their calorie intake balanced and control their weight. In addition, starting a day with a healthy breakfast help teenagers avoid hunger spasms that may make them want to eat fast food before lunch. It is recommended that adding fruits and vegetables, which are low in calories and high in nutrients, at least five times per day into diet helps maintain a healthier weight. As a teenager with a healthy weight, you can lower the risk of overweight and obesity later and can be more self-confidence in your life.
5. Better Complexion
Having a better complexion is also one of the great benefits of healthy eating habits for teenagers. Nothing can wreak havoc on your complexion as much as unhealthy eating habits. As skin is the largest organ in your body, it needs plenty of nutrients to stay healthy. Eating fatty, fried foods make your skin aging fast, rough and prone to acne. Eating healthy is the best way to get a fresh, glowing, clean and healthy complexion. The reason is that your skin will be provided with the needed nutrients to grow new cells, flush out toxins and function properly.
6. Improve Mood
Coupled with regular exercise, a healthy diet can help you improve your mood that is among of benefits of healthy eating habits for teenagers. Besides weight changes, during puberty, teenagers often have mood swings and general anti-sociable behavior. Eating unhealthy foods such as high sugar and fat foods can contribute to your poor mood. In addition, if you skip means, you are likely to be more moody than those when you eat regularly. Eating regularly with healthy diet , teenagers can get all of the antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients needed to raise serotonin levels in their brain. This neurotransmitter is known to calm your mood, helping you feel better and act accordingly. Moreover, as I said above, healthy eating habits can lead to a better physique and complexion. Therefore, you may also feel more confident about your appearance.
7. Prevent Deficiencies
Some teenagers want to have a slim physique by diet without eating certain food groups such as dairy, meat or even carbohydrates to lose weight. As a result, they are at high risk for a deficiency of certain nutrients, especially during great growth time, this deficit is exacerbated. In this case, the benefits of healthy eating habits for teenagers are providing enough required nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are important for teenagers and prevent them from deficiency of certain nutrients.
8. Establish A Healthy Attitude To Food
As mentioned previously on our site, due to the ongoing pressure to be slim and fit the mould of “beautiful standard”, many teenagers, especially teen girls, are likely to have eating disorders. Maintaining a healthy weight is important, but it is not by focusing too much on weight loss. It is encouraging healthy eating habits and regular exercise to maintain a healthy weight for teenagers.
All of the above 10 benefits of healthy eating habits for teenagers are just the greatest advantages among of many others. With my personal experience and study for a long time in this field, I am glad to share with anyone who desires to find out answer to the question how to get a better appearance, health and life. I hope that the information I share today will help people, especially teenagers, have positive attitude toward healthy eating habits and can decide if they should change their eating habits or not.
If you feel the information I offer in this article are really useful for your current expectation, just feel free to leave all your comments/feedbacks at the end of this post. We appreciate your contribution and will respond all as soon as possible.
9. Build Healthy Bones
Bones are growing and becoming stronger during the teen years. Healthy eating habits help their bones become as strong as possible by ensuring plenty of calcium during this growth period. In this way, teenagers also can reduce their risk of osteoporosis later in life.
10. Combat Diseases And Reduce Risk Of Disease Later
A healthy eating habit is essential to prevent certain health conditions and diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers. That is because healthy eating habits can help boost good cholesterol called high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in your blood and decrease unhealthy triglycerides to keep your blood flowing smoothly, reducing risk of cardiovascular diseases both in teenager years and later in life. Although many teens are still unaware of the importance of this for later life, it is necessary to give them a reason for healthy eating habits other than weight management.
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