Teens Have Special Needs – You Need These Tips To Get the Best Nutrition for Teens!
Being a teenager is tough. Everything is different – your bones and muscles develop and your body shape changes, and your emotions and feelings switch every minute.
That’s why it’s important to eat right. You need to give your mind and body the proper nutrition it needs to grow strong and healthy, so that you feel good and full of energy!
Eating well doesn’t have to mean eating flavorless foods. It’s about getting the balance right. When you follow these top tips for nutrition for teens, you’ll find yourself feeling better – and you’re sowing the seeds for a healthy adulthood.
A Word On Your Metabolism
Your body’s metabolism normally works really well when you’re a teenager. It works far more efficiently now, than it will as you grow older.
But it won’t work efficiently if you just keep eating the wrong things. It’s a good idea to watch the amount of foods you are eating which are high in fat and sugar (such as take-aways, cakes, biscuits, chips and sodas or soft drinks). Often they are full of calories but low in useful nutrients.
It’s still okay to eat these foods occasionally – just try to keep the balance in favour of real foods.
Read on for my Top 10 Tips on how to get the best nutrition when you’re a teen!
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #1: Enjoy a Good Breakfast
Yes, your mom or grandmother is right – breakfast IS the most important meal of the day. And you can make it a really yummy meal that also sets you up for the rest of the day.
Studies show that teens who eat a good breakfast every morning have fewer issues with weight. You’ll have energy to keep you going throughout the day, and you won’t be tempted to snack on junk food.
Ideas? All of these options are quick to prepare and can be eaten on the way to school. If you’re not hungry first thing in the morning, take these yummy breakfasts with you to eat later on.
- Instant oats with milk or yogurt – add frozen berries to cool it down.
- A whole-wheat wrap (who says wraps are only for lunch?) filled with sliced turkey or roast beef and some salad.
- A toasted whole-grain waffle spread with nut butter and banana slices.
- Make a smoothie with fruit, some green leaves like baby spinach (you won’t taste it!), yogurt and fresh juice. Add some protein powder if you wish, to make it more filling.
- A hard-boiled egg and an apple or a banana.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #2: Avoid Low-Fat / Fat-Free Options
When you’re a teenager, you’re under a lot of pressure to look good. And adverts bombard you with images of perfect bodies. So it’s tempting to eat low-fat or fat-free varieties of food you enjoy.
Don’t!
To remove the fat, these products are heavily processed. Once the goodness has been removed, there’s very little flavor left, so artificial additives are mixed in. Many of those additives are shown to be harmful to our health. Plus, sugar or artificial sweeteners are added, so although low-fat products are low in fat, they’re often high in sugar – and sugars can cause weight gain. Which is exactly what you’re trying to avoid!
Instead, eat smaller amounts of full-fat products.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #3: Sleep!
Most people will tell you that you need about 8 hours sleep a night. But teens need more – often up to 10 hours!
Your body is growing so rapidly that it needs more rest time.
If you need to get up early the next morning, go to bed earlier the night before.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #4: Eat More (Yuck) Fruit and Veggies
Of course, fresh fruits and vegetables don’t have quite the same appeal as junk food.
But think about ones that you DO enjoy eating. Then make a tasty smoothie with your favourites, but add in some vegetables as well – you won’t taste them, but you’ll get all their goodness.
It’s really easy to “drink” your vegetables, and tastier than eating broccoli with your dinner for example.
You’ll feel better when you eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and they’ll help you to maintain a healthy weight too.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #5: Unplug and Move!
Although it’s tempting to stay connected all the time, it’s lousy for your health.
Unplug at least 5 times a week, and get up, get outside, socialize with your friends, and enjoy some physical activity.
You may find that your electronic addiction is not really that important after all.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #6: Enjoy the Sunshine!
Your body needs vitamins and minerals to keep you healthy. You can get most of them from the healthy food that you eat. But there’s one vitamin that’s different.
Your body can only get vitamin D from sunshine.
(Supplements aren’t as effective, it’s far better to get the real thing).
Exposure to natural sunshine for just 10 to 15 minutes provides all of the vitamin D your young body needs to help you stay strong and healthy.
If there’s no sunshine, a special lamp can work.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #7: Go For the Grass!
When you kick off your shoes and walk barefoot in a grassy field, park or meadow, it feels really good, and you can’t help but smile!
(Why? It’s thought that as your feet stir up the natural elements that make up and surround green grass, you benefit from natural electrons that are conducted to your body).
Studies have shown that just 15 minutes spent walking barefoot on grass can help to relieve the stress that so frequently accompanies your turbulent teenage years.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #8: Eat, Don’t Skip Meals
With all the peer pressure and advertisements for perfect body, you might be tempted to intentionally miss meals to try to keep your weight down.
Don’t! It actually puts your body into starvation mode, causing it to store fat — the exact opposite of what you want!
Eat 3 good meals, or 5 smaller meals each day to help maintain a healthy weight.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #9: You Need Calcium and Iron
Because your body is growing and changing so rapidly, one mineral that’s particularly important is calcium.
You can get calcium from full-fat dairy products – snuggle up with a warm milk or hot chocolate as you go to bed, enjoy fruit yoghurts as a healthy snack any time of the day, and add cheese to your sandwiches.
Again, avoid low-fat or fat-free options.
Although many boys generally meet their iron needs, teenage girls often don’t. You can get iron by eating lentils, soybeans, baked beans, cashews and almonds, chicken breast, beef steak and hard-boiled eggs.
Nutrition For Teens – Tip #10: Drink!
It’s really important that you drink enough water – but most teens drink sodas or soft drinks. They’re laden with sugar, and the sugar-free versions are full of artificial sweeteners that are lousy for your health.
Water isn’t as exciting as soda, but it keeps you hydrated (sodas don’t) and helps you to maintain a healthy weight.
Drinking a soda sometimes is fine. Enjoy it and appreciate it. Then drink water and fresh juice the rest of the time.
And don’t be fooled by “vitamin water” – the artificial additives offer you no benefits.
If you want a drink with “fizz”, choose sparkling water.
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Warm regards,
P.S. Don’t forget to download your FREE juicing and smoothies recipe book here!
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