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Theme : Eat Junkfood
Teen
Diet Isn’t All Jun Food
( Source : Washington
Post Staff Writter : Tuesday, October 31, 2006 )
A walk through the food court of any
mall confirms the worst reports aboit teens’ eating
habits: Kids
share overflowing cartons of french fries, bite into cheeseburger and dripping
slices of pizza,
and quench their thirst with jumbo cups of soda.
Stop and talk to teenagers, though, and many
say that they eat junk mainly when they’re out
of their
parents’ eyesight, especially when they’re hanging out with friends. They have
learned what it
means to eat healthfully, they say, even though they often don’t choose to do
so.
Take 17-year-old
Porscha Hall, a senior at Ballou Senior High School in the District, who
says that she
usuallay skips breakfast and has chips, cookies, candy and soda – bought from
school vendding
machine – for lunch. She often goes to a carryout restaurant after school for
french fries,
fried rice and egg rolls. Dinner at home tends to be much healthier, she says,
including baked
chicken and rice.
Hall says she
kows her mom would prefer that she eat healthier melas.But,she says,“ I don’t
have time to eat
healthy,” because she attends school during the day and takes classes at
night. She
predicts that one day, probably when she’s done with collage, her food choices
may matter more
to her.
Hall admits that
junk food is often the quickest way to satisfy her hunger when she’s on the
go – and that’s
common among busy teenagers, says Felicity Northcott, an anthropologist
who does
nutrition research at Johns Hopkins University. “ I’m not sure that teenagers
don’t
eat healthyfully
because they don’t want to – particularly teens who are in school, where
there is a lot
of junk food arround, “ she says. “ They just eat whatever is there.”
The tension–between
knowing what is bad for you and continuing to do it anyway – is a key
challenge for
health professionals. About one-thrid of American children and adolescents are
obese or at risk
for obesity, accourding to report released in September by the Institute of
Medicine; and
the obesity rate has more than tripled for thoose ages 12 to 19 in the past
three
decades,
increasing from 5 percent to 17 percent.
The effects of food choice on weight and,
later, chronic disease are also well documented,
A 2005 study in
the journal Pediatrics found that children ages 9 to 14 who ate more fried
food away from
home tended to be heavier. Findings published in 2004in Obesity Reserach
showed that,
among children ages 9 to 14, drinking sugared beverages may contribute to
weight gain.
Kids who talk about eating healthyfully often
say their good habits were estabilshed at home.
Sajni Patel, a
10th-grander at Thoms S. Wooton High School in Rockville, says she’s a big
fresh-fruit
eater—which is unusual, she admints, for a 15-year old.
“ I love citrus fruit, apples, nectarines,
mango,” Patel explain. “ I will come home around 3
and have a salad
[and] vegetables” – choices she attributes to her parent’s mealtime routines.
Rachida Ross,
16, a junior at Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School in the
District, admits
she enjoys chips, cakes, candy and hot sausages – burt her mom’srule of
eating a salad
with every meal sticks.
“ I’m not a big fried-food eater,”Ross says.
And her mom typically keeps fresh fruits in the
house. But there
are also not-so-good-for-you foods. So what would Ross pick given a choice
between junk
food and fresh fruit? “I’ll probably go more for the chips and stuff, “Ross
admints. “I try
to do what my mom does with vegetables and stuff. I know it’s good for me.
Sometimes I have
a choice not to eat a salad, but I’ll take it anyway.
As teens prepare
to leave home, their parents’ influnce declines, but it does not dissapear.
Michael Kellogg,
an 18-year-old high school senior from Woodstock, Ga., generally makes
his own food
selections, he says. But his parents’ rules and routines still affect his food
choices.
“I guess 40
percent is my own choice and 60 percent is I eat what they eat,”he says. “When
I’m on the go, I
will stop and get fast food.
The transition
to college life – which Kellogg will make next year – is another challenge.
Ajanta Raman,
18, a freshman at William Jewell College in Missouri, describes how she now
substitutes
breakfast bars for her morning meal and eats protein bars at lunchtime, when
she
has two classes.
But, she says, she has succeeded in taking the eating lessons learned at home
with her to
college.
“ Mom always
said to stay away from all the Honey Buns and the really sugary stuff,” Raman
said. “ If it
weren’t for her, I’d probably be eating a lot more of these sweets and
calories.”
Other teens
report sticking to healthy diets because they – ang their peers – want to stay
inshape. That’s
the case for Samantha Boddy, 13, of Sarasota, Fla., who loves dancing. She
starts out with
a smoothie in the morning and eats apples and whole-grain snack bars
throughout the
day.
“I’ve always
eaten really healthy,” saidBoddy, attributing that both to her mom and to the
influence dance
has had on her. If fellow students see a dancer eating a potato chip, she
explains,
“they”ll freak out and say, “ Do you know what that’s doing to your body right
now, as we’re
speaking?”
