3 Reasons Behind Teenage Weight Gain

Teenage obesity is harder to control than childhood obesity. This is because children are more receptive to advice and suggestions than teens. Also, you cannot chide a teenager in the same way as a pre-teen. As we grow into adolescence, we grow physically as well as mentally. We become much more sensitive and stubborn than before. We think of ourselves as more intelligent than our parents. As you can see, handling a teenage kid is a real pain in the butt.

Now, why teenagers gain weight? Teenagers gain weight because:

1) They hardly know the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods since they were taught about it during their childhood. If they were eating junk and fatty foods as little kids, the same unhealthy eating habit follows them into their adolescence and they start eating them in larger quantities.

Parents often ask their kids to buy junk foods from outside instead of taking the time or trouble to cook healthy meals at home. If your child never tastes healthy and organic foods, he would naturally hate them in the latter years of his life.

Plus, if your child lives in school hostel, things could get only worse. These days, schools prefer to buy junk foods from outside since it is the cheaper option to cooking meals in-house. Also, the exercise classes they have are pretty basic. They would only work for a certain period, after which your kid would be left on his own.

As you can see, there is just no way your teen kid can have a choice to eat healthy foods.

2) They are much more tempted to try out restaurant foods than their pre-teen counterparts. You see, almost all teenagers today have their pockets full of cash. There are usually two sources of this cash: either their parents offer them pocket money or they make money by dong part time jobs. So, when they have money to spend, they usually spend it on junk foods because they are tasty and yummy.

A lot of their food habits are also influenced by their peers at school and college. I still remember how every time my friend had soft drinks at the college canteen, I would inevitably buy one for myself, even though I had no intention of buying it when I ventured out of home.

3) They hardly exercise. Again, their parents have got a big role to play here. If a kid is not taught the benefits of exercises, or if parents allow them to watch video games for hours instead of encouraging them to participate in outdoor sports, the situation could only get worse as they grow into adolescence.

There are indeed very few schools which make outdoors sports and other such activities a mandatory part of their curriculum. As such, our present school system is also to be blamed for teenage obesity.

It would have been good if the present American lifestyle and education system could be completely revolutionized; however, I don’t see it happening within the next few years. Hence, as a parent, it is high time that you start taking control of your kid’s health. As to what you should do to keep your teenage kid healthy, I think that what I said above is more than enough.

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