Teenage obesity is something we cannot ignore, for it is as much disastrous, perhaps even more disastrous, than adult obesity. For one, people who have been obese as teenagers are less likely to live a long life than those who live a healthy life as teens. For another, unlike adults who can control obesity with the help of diets, diet pills, and intense workouts, teenagers cannot do the same because of the following three reasons:
a) The teenage period is the period of growth for a human being. This is the time when our body needs more nutrition than at any other period. On the other hand, a lot of fad diets restrict your food intake in such a way that you are virtually cut off from eating most of the nutritious foods available. Obviously, teenagers cannot be prescribed such diets which would negatively affect their growth.
b) So far as diet pills are concerned, many of them come with harmful side effects. There are pills which have side effects such as nausea, vertigo, headache, indigestion, etc. Since teenagers tend to have weaker immune system compared adults, these side effects would cause great damage in their bodies.
c) Intense workouts are truly intense, in that they put a lot of stress on your body, particularly bone and muscles. As teenagers, we develop new muscles and our bones become stronger. However, since this is a period of bodily growth, a teenager’s body is not as strong as that of an adult. Consequently, if a teenager performs such intense workouts, he is very likely to injure himself seriously.
That said, all is not lost. There are several easy ways to keep your teenage kid fit and healthy. But it all depends on you. If parents are unwilling to cooperate, teenage obesity cannot be controlled. It is a fact that a child is more influenced by the lifestyle habits of his parents than that of strangers.
Don’t ever think that obese parents have obese kids solely because of genetic reasons. While genetic factors may have a key role to play regarding a person’s body , they are only as much powerful as one’s destiny. If a human wants, he can easily control his body just like he can master his density.
Here are two tips to fight teenage obesity
1) Weight loss experts often tout food as the biggest reason behind obesity. However, it is not food, but rather “bad food”, which causes gain. If a person keeps eating burgers, pizzas, cookies, cakes, soft drinks, soda, alcohol, processed fruit juices, etc., it is only natural that he would become over in the long run.
Remember that when it comes to eating, there is no healthier substitute than organic fruits and vegetables. Nature has plenty of healthy foods to offer us and if we wish to stay healthy and fit, we must eat only those foods and nothing else.
That doesn’t however mean that these natural foods need to be eaten raw. Get out of your laziness and start cooking meals at home using low fat oil. Remember that unless you become proactive about it, the health of your teenage kid would only get worse over time.
2. Today’s teenagers prefer to remain glued to television and video games instead of engaging in outdoor sports. Once again, parents have a key role to play here. If you watch television or remain glued to your computer screen for hours, it is natural that your kid would do the same.
Now, if you or your kid doesn’t want to workout, then don’t. But walking, running and jogging are some of the easy activities both of you could do to keep obesity at bay.
