Junk Food Eating Habits In Adolescents and Their Impact to Your Health

Health and Natural Living. A recent study examined about eating junk food habits among adolescent girls and its effect on their health. The study found that eating a lot of teenage girls filled by junk food makes their lack of intake of essential vitamins, causing various health problems later in life.

Nutritionists find that the daily diet that contains pizza, candy, and sweet drinks (sugar) gives a fairly serious health effects as they age.

One study concluded that nearly half of teenage girls who studied rarely consume fruit, vegetables, and fish, causing their intake of essential nutrients, like iron, magnesium, and selenium, are very low.

Iron, which is widely available in foods like red meat and green vegetables, is essential for the production of healthy red blood cells and helps keep the brain healthy. Magnesium can be obtained from shellfish to help maintain strong bones, while selenium is useful for the immune system.

The results of this study concluded that one in ten teenage girls have a very low calcium intake, thus making them at risk of having fragile bones and fractures in old age with them later.

One of six teenage girls is very low iodine intake, whereas iodine is a key mineral for fetal brain development in the womb.

According to the researchers, Carrie Ruxton, an independent nutritionist, and Emma Derbyshire, a nutritionist from Manchester University, adolescent diet is very bad because at this stage of their age, they begin to choose their own food they even skip meals.

Dr. Ruxton stated, "While conditions such as heart disease and cancer infecting many people at the age of 40, 50, and 60s, the early stages of the disease occurred several decades earlier.". This means that our dietary patterns during adolescence will give great influence to the health conditions in our old age. Dr. Ruton adding that it is very important for teenagers to lead a balanced diet, not only when they were teenagers, but also throughout their lives.