It’s an old cliche–but it’s rooted in truth: Teenagers eat. And they tend to eat a lot. For parents, this can inspire a little bit of…envy. Teenagers, the cliche goes, can eat whatever they want and never have to worry about the consequences. That’s not entirely true, however. Even to a teen eating habits can have a dramatic impact on lifelong health–which means developing healthy eating habits for teenagers can be a benefit to their long term wellness.
To be clear, a healthy diet for teens does not mean that teens should adopt a restrictive diet or start counting calories unless explicitly directed to do so by a pediatrician. Teens should also generally avoid any kind of “trendy” diet (such as paleo diets, for example).
Instead, healthy eating habits for teens should generally focus on two things: creating the kinds of good habits that will serve teens well as adults and ensuring they get all the nutrition they need while they are growing.
Nutritional Needs of Teenagers
Most teenagers have one or two major growth spurts during adolescence. Your teen still grows outside of these spurts–just not as quickly. Which means that teens generally need a lot of energy. Most teens require somewhere between 2200-2800 calories per day (depending on how old they are, their activity level, and other factors).
Teenagers will also need a significant amount of protein, carbohydrates, and nutrients. If your teen is eating a well balanced diet full of fruits and vegetables, nutrition should not be difficult to achieve. However, if your teen’s diet favors (for example) salty and fatty fried proteins, you may need to make a special effort to include more vegetables to ensure they’re getting enough nutrients.
How to Improve Teen Eating Habits
Ensuring your teen eats a balanced diet can be a difficult challenge. After all, many teens are growing into their own personalities–and developing their own palette! To encourage teen eating habits that are healthy, parents must sometimes take the lead. Here are some easy ways you can help encourage your teen to take a more balanced approach to food:
Try to cook at home as often as possible. Everyone’s busy, so there’s no shame in Door-Dashing or going out to eat once in a while. But the more often you cook at home, the healthier you (and your teen) will be eating.
Avoid pre-packaged, ultra-processed foods as much as possible. These foods generally have only a small amount of nutrients and a large amount of fats and salts.
Make fruits and vegetables part of every meal. This is a great moment for parents to model healthy eating behavior. If you turn your nose up at veggies, your kids probably will too. Instead, include fruits and vegetables as part of every meal (you can even make them the star of your meals).
Try to make healthier snacks available. Your teenager will likely be hungry all the time, so having healthy (and fast) options around is great.
Don’t avoid your teen’s favorite foods–even if they aren’t all that nutritious. Remember that ice cream is important too! Shaming your teen for enjoying non-nutritious foods can be counter-productive in the long run.
Healthier Teen Eating Habits for Picky Eaters
Of course, not all teens are going to adopt a balanced approach all that easily. For a wide variety of reasons, sometimes teens are especially particular about food. But this doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do. Some specific techniques for fostering a healthy diet for teens that are picky include the following:
Never shame your child for not eating or not liking a certain food. This will not help and can even create more roadblocks to healthy eating later in life.
Make healthy options available and inviting, but don’t force your child to eat them if they don’t want to.
Model good behavior. If your teen sees you trying new foods, that might make them more likely to do the same.
Work with your teen to create a menu. Together, you can focus on the healthier foods that your child does like and use them as a stepping stone to a broader palate.
Keep offering healthy options–without getting pushy. It’s a hard balance to achieve. You can make healthy options available, but avoid getting pushy or overly fixated on the topic.
Picky eating is not necessarily something that your teen can be forced out of. However, the positive role modeling and healthy habits may take hold later in life–even if you don’t see immediate changes in your teen today. You can also work with a dietician or nutritionist to find healthy options within your child’s preferences.
Promote Positive Body Image
Something that’s important to emphasize in these conversations is that slenderness does not necessarily mean healthy–and an overweight body is not necessarily an unhealthy body. As a result, it’s important to not conflate a healthy diet with a certain type of body. Additionally, helping your teen create and hold onto a positive body image can present significant benefits throughout life.
This can be challenging, especially because your teen will likely be inundated with messages that narrowly define beauty.
That’s why it’s important to avoid talking about fatness, food, or weight in morally positive or negative terms. Eating ice cream is neither a moral or immoral thing to do–it’s just a thing. A fat body is not a moral or immoral body–it’s just a body.
Adopting a body affirming attitude (towards your teen and yourself) can help your teen achieve a more positive body image. (And, of course, avoid fat shaming–either of yourself or of your child. Your teen will likely internalize anything you say about yourself as a standard they have to live up to as well.)
Helping Teens Be Healthier
A healthy diet for teens is one that gives them the skills to eat well throughout the rest of their lives and the nutrients they need to reach their full potential. There are many ways to achieve this result. Parents can work with their teens to find solutions that work for them.
If you have questions about what healthy eating habits for teens look like, talk to your teen’s pediatrician. You can schedule an appointment at our Chicago or Northbrook offices today!