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Your letters: Healthy living for teenagers
Watersports, Jakarta style: A teenager takes a photo of her friends in a flood-hit area in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, on Jan
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Watersports, Jakarta style: A teenager takes a photo of her friends in a flood-hit area in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, on Jan. 13, 2013. A number of activities have been introduced for teenagers to maintain an ideal body size and healthy lifestyle.(JP/P.J. Leo) (JP/P.J. Leo)
W
span class="inline inline-center">Watersports, Jakarta style: A teenager takes a photo of her friends in a flood-hit area in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, on Jan. 13, 2013. A number of activities have been introduced for teenagers to maintain an ideal body size and healthy lifestyle.(JP/P.J. Leo)
In their teenage years a person goes through many physical changes that can affect their life as an adult. Therefore, it is essential for teenagers to take part in healthy living by eating a healthy diet, doing the right exercises and maintaining correct body posture to ensure a bright and healthy future.
A teenager has many nutritional needs that can be fulfilled by a balanced diet that contains the fundamental nutrients in correct proportions.
Firstly, in the early stages of adolescence, the body requires a lot of calories. In general, teenage boys need to consume 2,800 calories each day and teenage girls need to consume 2,200 calories per day. An excessive intake of calories can result in serious health problems such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart diseases.
Obesity is most common among teens today because of the wrong choices they make in their diet. Today, junk food such as pizza, burgers, fries and soda, which have little nutritional value and contain excessive fat, sugar, salt and calories, are the major portion of teenagers' diets.
Other nutrients that a teenager needs are proteins, carbohydrates and fats. The main source of calories should come from carbohydrates (50 to 60 percent) that can be found in healthy high-carbohydrate foods such as vegetables, beans, whole grains, fruits, nuts and yogurt.
The second component is exercise. The teenage years are a period of both physical and mental growth and exercise is a great way to reduce stress, burn extra calories and strengthen mental health. It also reduces the risk of many diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart diseases and breast cancer. Teenagers should participate in sports such as swimming, basketball, soccer, badminton and do regular aerobic exercises as they ensure proper oxygen intake and improve stamina.
The third and final part of healthy living is maintaining the right body posture. Almost every teenager today uses smart phones or laptops resulting in them laying in bed in an incorrect manner, phone too close to their eyes, or slouching on the couch while flipping channels on the television. Bad body posture can result in several physical problems over time such as slipped discs, back ache and back pain and also lower self-esteem for teenagers.
Stuti Agrawal
Gandhi Memorial International School
Jakarta
