Teens4Teen Health

Welcome back friends! The next topic that I’ve researched about is nutrition and healthy eating. Promoting healthy eating habits is important to your overall well being by: keeping eyes, teeth, and skin healthy, supporting your muscles, strengthening your bones, supporting your brain health, boosting your immune system, helping your digestive system with its functions, improves your mood and energy, and impacts your memory and cognitive functions.

Energy is what helps you grow. Your healthy eating plan should include a variety of foods and beverages that are high in vitamins, minerals, fibers, lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. You also should choose foods that are low in saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium.

Fibers help maintain digestive health, help us to feel full longer, controls blood sugar, and lowers cholesterol levels. Some good sources of fibers that you could add into your meals are fruit (ex. pears, apples, melons, passion fruits), vegetables (ex. celery, carrots), whole grains (ex. oatmeal), nuts, and seeds. Calcium and Vitamin D promotes bone health- our bodies make vitamin D from sunshine, but some individuals may not be able to produce enough, and calcium can be found in different foods. To increase calcium and vitamin D, drink a dairy beverage with your meals, eat salmon or sardines once a week, eat the vegetables of spinach, collards, bok choy, mushrooms, or taro root, and ingest items like soy beverages, soy yogurt, orange juice, and whole-grain cereals that have the added nutrients needed to successfully consume these minerals and vitamins. Potassium helps the kidneys, heart, muscles, and nerves to function properly. In order to add more potassium to your diet, try recipes with beet greens, lima beans, or swiss chard and have orange juice, pomegranate juice, prune juice, or a banana. Limiting added sugars to your diet can decrease your risk of diabetes, any heart conditions, and obesity. Added sugars are sugars or syrups that are added to food and drinks when they are processed and prepared. To limit added sugars, drink water instead of sugary drinks, add fruit to your cereal or yogurt for sweetness, skip flavored syrups or whipped cream when drinking coffee and drink black coffee instead of what you normally drink. Even though cutting back on some of your favorite foods may be dull, aiming for a variety of colors in your foods may be fun. Sprinkle green herbs on top of a salad or pasta, make a red sauce with tomatoes, add green veggies to give foods a boost of color, and add your favorite yellow, blue, and red fruits on top of some yogurt.

Eating healthy is vital and essential for overall health in your bodies, but it’s perfectly okay to indulge in sweet treats sometimes. My favorite treats are ice cream and oreos! Bye now friends!