Healthy Teen Eating Tips and Tricks for Teens Tested By Researchers

Encouraging healthy teen eating can start by making just a few changes, according to nutrition researchers. Begin by using a few new tricks, they suggest. They found out how to make pasta dishes healthier, with fewer calories and more veggies, and that teens could not tell the difference when vegetables were added.

• Researchers successfully encouraged healthy teen eating by sneaking veggies into their pasta sauce. For the study, nutrition researchers developed two pasta dishes — one with broccoli and cauliflower blended into the sauce so that the dish had fewer calories, and another, that had no vegetables but had higher calories.

• Children and teens who participated didn't perceive a difference between the two dishes, unaware that the vegetable-blended pasta was packed with high amounts of fibre, vitamins and antioxidants.

"The kids and teens could not really tell the difference and ate a consistent weight of pasta," said lead researcher Kathleen E. Leahy about the study at Penn State University.

Leahy also found that teens who ate the pasta with blended vegetables consumed 17 per cent fewer calories than those who ate the pasta with a higher calorie count.

• This finding could be particularly helpful to parents seeking a way to encourage their teens eating healthy a healthy weight.

Sugar Drinks Weighty: Why Milk for Teens Eating Healthy?

A large, comprehensive study of U.S. beverage consumption of 10,000 adults, teens and children, concluded that the trend of drinking sugar-laden drinks to replace milk is contributing to people gaining weight. (Environ International Corporation)

Does drinking milk keep you slim? The pre-teen, teenage girls and women ages 19 to 49 in the study, who drank more milk and fewer sweetened beverages, had significantly lower body mass indexes compared to those who drank little milk and more sweetened beverages.

How Does Milk Help Teens Lose Weight?

A study of 323 adolescent Hawaiian girls found they lost weight and abdominal girth by consuming just half the U.S. Food Guide's daily recommendation of three dairy servings. Only girls participated in the study but the researcher said boys would have shown similar benefits.

"It suggests that consuming more dairy would help you have a slimmer middle and that it can also help you with maintaining weight," Rachel Novotny, chairwoman of the nutrition department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, reported. "But you need to watch the soda intake."

Researchers found that an increase of one cup of milk or a small piece of cheese resulted in a reduction of abdominal fat by 0.9 millimetres, and a loss of as much as a kilogram in body weight. The benefits were offset by drinking soft drinks.

While the results appear to support dairy industry arguments about the health benefits of milk, Ms. Novotny said her research wasn't funded by the dairy industry. Canadian researchers also found that girls and women who avoid calcium have bigger waist sizes than those who consume moderate or elevated amounts of calcium.

The implications for healthy teen eating? Teens and women who consumed 600 milligrams of calcium had a significantly different body mass, fat percentage and waist size than those who consumed less.

Can dairy fat can be part of healthy teen eating?

Yes. Robert Gibson, director of the Child Nutrition Research Center in Adelaide, Australia, said his studies suggest that dairy consumption is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. They are among the requirements for helping young girls build bone mass needed to ward off osteoporosis in later life.

• "The big message is don't be frightened of dairy fat because along with dairy fat comes the other good things that come with dairy food."

Need extra help getting started?

• Adding a high-calcium diet shake to suppress appetite before the meal to eat less, may be a good and safe improvement for healthy teen eating.

Recommendation for CALCIUM-rich Diet SHAKEs Safe for Healthy Eating for Teens

Links For Teens Eating Healthy: More Tips and Tricks

Giving Fat Kids A Better Chance

• Nutrition for Alarming Life-Long Effects of Childhood Cancer

• Teens Cook: How To Cook What You Want

• Clueless in the Kitchen: A Cookbook for Teens & Beginners, Amazon

• AMA Family Cookbook for Healthy Eating for Teens

• The Teens Vegetarian Cookbook

• More Veggie Ideas: Vegetarian Family Cookbook, AMAZON

• Turning Obesity Around Starting Small

Healthy Teen Eating: Tips and Easy Tricks for Healthy Eating for Teens

GO to Health Discoveries HOME PAGE from Healthy Teen Eating

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