Dieting Dilemma for Teens

An alarming amount of people in the United States are dissatisfied with the body they were born to own.  They turn to diets to try to find a solution; unfortunately, few are successful.  Perhaps this is because they are looking in the wrong place.  They falsely believe that losing weight will fix life’s problems and that everyone should be thinner and look exactly the same.  How boring the world would be if everyone looked alike!

The diet industry promises many things including the following:

• Quick weight loss

• To “fix” certain body parts

• Easy solutions

• No effort

• Minimal body movement

• Miracle supplement
  

• Miracle body toning machine 

• Creams that melt fat away
  

• Drinks that increase metabolism

• Take a pill to decrease appetite

• Candy without Calories or energy

What is the diet reality?

There is no secret method to lose weight or technique to “fix” the human body.  The body is a miracle and should be loved and admired each and every day.  The key is to develop a balanced, supportive lifestyle that includes enough body movement, rest and nutrition to create health and support individual life potential.

The result of dieting is often a decrease of energy and feeling tired all of the time.  This can lead to a decline in performance in every area of life including sports, school and the joy in being around your friends.   Many teens try to lose weight by skipping breakfast and or lunch only to find they eat more food than the body needs later in the day, especially after school and at night.  The average diet lasts only two weeks leaving the dieter feeling sad.  Soon after the diet ends, the person gains the weight that was lost and sometimes more than the starting weight, losing muscle in the process.

There is another way!

Learn to enjoy the process of taking care of the miraculous body in a responsible way.  Any eating plan that denies the body of essential and powerful nutrients, that are necessary for life, is no good.  Normal growth of teens requires a great deal of energy or Calories.  A responsible eating plan includes all major core elements or food groups and enough energy to take care of growth and all of the other needs of the body.  Anything that interferes with growth during a growth spurt could result in permanent stunting of height, which means that you won’t be as tall as you were supposed to be!  The body puts down some extra storage of energy during later childhood and the tween years.  This is absolutely normal and necessary.  The table below gives a snapshot of what to expect from 5th grade through senior year for normal growth in inches and pounds.  Remember for every inch of growth the body should gain between 5 to 6 pounds.  That includes muscle, bone, tendons, cartilage, skin and blood.

Average Growth for Height and Weight from 5th to 12th Grade