 www.tamilstar.com Health News Teenagers have a reputation for bad eating habits. They go overboard with junk foods and fast foods, follow fad diets, skip meals, and don't get enough of the nutrient-rich foods that their growing bodies need. Nutritionists say such extreme eating habits can be dangerous. A Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that teens' unhealthy dietary habits, smoking, alcohol and drug use, and risky sexual practices put teens at risk for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease later on in life. Teens' extreme eating habits, which have also been labeled disordered and dysfunctional, can even lead to death, experts say. Ironically, the nutrients that teenagers need the most in those peak growth years they don't get, says Sheila Kelly, a clinical dietitian at Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C. "In general, a teenager's diet is very low in vitamins and minerals," says Kelly. In particular, teenagers lack calcium, iron and zinc. Parents can't always control what their teens eat, she says, but they can influence the way their children eat (see tips below). Kelly says peer pressure, on-the-go lifestyles and dual-working parents relying heavily on convenience foods contribute to teens' poor eating habits. The media also has an influence, she says. According to a study that appeared in the "Journal of Nutrition Education," children see more than 100,000 food commercials on TV by the time they are adolescents, and many of those commercials are mainly for high-fat and high-sugar foods, Kelly says. Also, in between the Big Mac and Pepsi pitches, teens, particularly girls, fall prey to Madison Avenue's message that there's no such thing as being too rich or too thin, according to nutritionist Frances Berg, who is editor of the "Healthy Weight Journal" and author of "Afraid to Eat: Children and Teens in Weight Crisis." In a study of 1,000 suburban girls, Berg found that more than half of the 14-year-old girls in the study had already been on one weight loss diet. In another study, at least 30 percent of 9-year-old girls and 46 percent to 81 percent of 10-year-old girls in California were no longer eating normally because of fear of fat. "They drink too much diet soda. They don't get enough calcium, which effects them later on in life, and they obsess about food intake," Kelly says of many teenage girls' diet. U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys show that nine out of 10 girls and nearly seven out of 10 boys ages 12 to 19 are not getting the recommended amount of calcium needed for strong bones. Peak bone growth is up to age 18, according to Kelly. The National Academy of Sciences recommends that teens and children ages 9 to 19 consume 1,300 mg of calcium per day, the equivalent of four servings of dairy products. Teenagers who don't get enough calcium can make things worse drinking copious amounts of soda, which leaches calcium from the bones, according to Kelly. Kelly says teenagers also tend to avoid fruits and vegetables, which are great sources of disease-preventing phytochemicals. A CDC National Risk Behavior Survey in 1997 found that just over 29 percent of students surveyed had eaten the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables during the day preceding the survey. So what are worried parents to do? Kelly offers these five tips for helping coax a teenager to the table or to help detour potential eating problems before their child hits the teen years:
The National Cancer Institute and the CDC have a quick quiz for how your eating habits stack up. To take the quiz, visit http://5aday.nci.nih.gov/track-formhabits.shtml Extreme Eating Facts
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