Fitness and Nutrition Tips for Teenagers

Being a healthy teenager can be hard when all they are surrounded by is pizza, fried food, movie theater outings, and shopping mall trips. These foods and environments unfortunately do not lead to a healthy living style. Teenagers should begin their adult years by being healthy and in shape. This isn't always the easiest thing to manage, but leading a healthy lifestyle is very important to people of all ages.

Being healthy and in shape at a young age is actually pretty easy, it's a lot easier than trying to become healthy and in shape later in life. The teen years are the times to begin lifelong rituals, health patterns and fitness behaviors.

While most teens aren't really into eating salads, fruits and veggies, there are ways of sneaking the health food into their normal diet. Some great tips to do this are by reducing the percentage of fat in their milk from 2% to fat free (an unnoticeable change). Change their white bread to wheat bread, or regular pasta to whole wheat pasta. These will be minor changes that won't really give off a different taste. Lastly, well seasoned veggies will go a long way with dinner at night. If you remember back to your teen years, a tasteless veggie was a veggie probably being fed to the dog. So, adding the seasoning will help your teen to want to eat "healthy food" and get all the nutrients they need.

If you do the grocery shopping, buy tasty healthy foods, and that's what will be in their lunch bag. It might be a hard road to take at first, but after a while they will get used to their new type of lunches.

Another great way to add fitness into your teen's life is by convincing them to join afterschool activities that involve some type of physical movement. Most high schools provide a wide variety of sports, and most teens can find one type of activity that interests them. Encouraging after school sports will give them the fitness they need in order to say in good shape or get into good shape. If your teen is not interested in any school sports, most towns have different types of sports to offer that may be more of an interest to them instead. If all else fails, join a gym yourself and ask your teen to join you as a gym partner. A free ride and a free gym membership is a free invitation to great health.

The summertime is unfortunately the time where teen's health completely deteriorates. They binge on the junk food, and many teens prefer to sit put in the air conditioning rather than being outside on a 90 degree day. Get them motivated by sending them to work at a day camp, they'll make money and stay in good shape. Bring them to a pool where they can swim for hours, which can be great exercise. The summer time is also a great time to introduce salads, and fresh vegetables. You can always reward your teen with a nice sorbet (high in taste, and no fat) at the end of the day.

Rewarding your teen with some of their favorite unhealthy foods a couple times a week is ok. It will prevent them from sneaking around and finding unhealthy foods to binge on elsewhere. Cutting all favorites out of their diet can cause more harm than help.

However, your teen might have the complete opposite problem then over eating, and getting no exercise. Many teens have a desire to have the body of a celebrity or a model, and feel that starving or over exerting themselves at a gym will solve their problems. This type of nutrition and fitness lifestyle can be a hazard to your teen's life. If you see your teen not eating the same way or overdoing it with the exercise, then you might want to take a closer look. Serious conditions of starvation or severe dieting (when unnecessary) can lead to eating disorders such as Anorexia and Bulimia. If you sense any of these problems, take your teen to a health care professional immediately.

A great reference for more teen nutrition and fitness tips is Kids Health , or Right Health.