What's So Junky About 'Junk' Food?
The pace for teens is fast and getting faster. Added to
pressures from school to prepare for college or a job, many teens take part in sports and
work part-time. This often means eating on the run. Stack that on top of the snack foods
you eat on dates or when you get together with friends, and the balance of your nutrients
can get way out of kilter.
Many snacks, such as potato chips, fast-food cheeseburgers,
and fries, have high levels of fat, sugar or salt--ingredients that are usually best
limited to a small portion of your diet. Healthy eating doesn't mean that you can't have
your favorite foods, but the Dietary Guidelines advise you to be selective and limit the
total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium you eat. Our main source of saturated
fat comes from animal products and hydrogenated vegetable oils, with tropical
oils--coconut and palm--providing smaller amounts. Only animal fat provides cholesterol.
Sodium mostly comes from salt added to foods during processing, home preparation, or at
the table.
Fats are our most concentrated source of energy. Scientists
know that eating too much fat, especially saturated fat and cholesterol, increases blood
cholesterol levels, and therefore increases your risk of heart disease. Too much fat also
may lead to overweight and increase your risk of some cancers.
Dietitians recommend that no more than 30 percent of your
calories come from fats, and not more than 10 percent of these calories should be from
saturated fat. Choose lean meats, fish, poultry without skin, and low-fat dairy products
whenever you can. When you eat out, particularly at fast-food restaurants, look for
broiled or baked rather than fried foods. Try the salad bars more often, but pass up
creamy items and limit the amount of salad dressing you use to keep down the fat and
calories. Look for milk-based high-calcium foods with reduced fat.
Spare the Sugar and Salt
Most people like the taste of table sugar. But did you know
that other sweeteners are sometimes "hidden" in foods? There are sugars in
honey, dried fruits, concentrated fruit juices, and ingredients such as corn syrup that
are added to soft drinks, cookies, and many other processed foods. You can see what sugars
are in packaged foods by looking at the ingredient list.
If you are a very active teen with high-energy needs, sweets
can be an additional source of calories. But keep in mind that they contain only limited
nutrients and that both sugars and starches can contribute to tooth decay.
A moderate amount of sodium in your diet is necessary,
because sodium, along with potassium, maintains the water balance in your body. But for
some people, too much sodium can be a factor in high blood pressure. Since processed foods
often contain large amounts of sodium, it's wise to use salt sparingly when cooking or at
the table--and to avoid overeating salty snacks like pretzels and chips.
When you exercise heavily and sweat profusely, you can
deplete your sodium reserve, unbalance your body chemistry, and possibly become
dehydrated. In extreme cases of profuse sweating, such as during training or competition,
a dilute glucose-electrolyte drink may become necessary, but always with an abundance of
water to make up for sweat losses.
What's All This About Fiber?
Whole-grain breads and cereals, dried beans and peas,
vegetables, and fruits contain various types of dietary fiber essential for proper bowel
function. Eating plenty of these fiber-rich foods may reduce your risk of cancer and heart
disease.
The benefits from a high-fiber diet may be related to the
foods themselves and not to fiber alone. For this reason, it's best to get fiber from
foods rather than from the fiber supplements you can purchase in a store.
Be Aware of Alcohol
Alcoholic beverages deserve special mention. Drinking them
risks good health and can cause other serious problems for teens. And although it is
illegal for teens to buy alcoholic beverages, a 1994 survey conducted by the Department of
Health and Human Services shows that 31 percent of high-school seniors and 20 percent of
juniors reported being drunk in the past 30 days.
Teens who drink risk impaired judgment in their social
relationships and endanger their own and others' lives if they drive after drinking.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 1996, 37 percent of fatal crashes
involving 15- to 20-year-old drivers were alcohol-related
Alcoholic beverages contain calories but few if any
nutrients. Drinking heavily can lead to poor nutrition if alcoholic beverages replace
foods with needed nutrients, and alcoholism is not unknown among teenagers.
What About Vegetarians?
There are many types of vegetarian diets, but the two most
common are the lacto-ovo, which includes eggs and milk products but not meat, and vegan,
which eliminates all forms of animal products. Teens who are lacto-ovo vegetarians can
usually get enough nutrients in their diets.
Vegan vegetarians are vulnerable to deficiencies of several
nutrients, particularly vitamins D and B-12, calcium, iron, zinc, and perhaps other trace
elements. Like all essential nutrients, these vitamins and minerals are required to
maintain proper growth.
If it is important to you to be a vegetarian, it is easier
to achieve good nutrition with the lacto-ovo form. A dietitian (or your school nurse) can
help you plan a vegetarian diet that provides you with the nutrients you need for growth
and development during the teen years.
Iron and Calcium
The need for iron for both boys and girls increases between
the ages of 11 and 18. The National Academy of Sciences recommends teenage boys get 12
milligrams of iron a day, mostly to sustain their rapidly enlarging body mass. For girls,
the recommended daily requirement is 15 milligrams to offset menstrual losses that begin
during this time.
It's important to plan how to get adequate iron in your
diet. Iron from meat, poultry and fish is better absorbed by your body than the iron from
plant sources. However, the absorption of iron from plants is improved by eating fruit or
drinking juice that contains vitamin C with the iron-rich food.
Teens need extra calcium to store up an optimal amount of
bone (called "peak" bone mass). The richest sources of calcium are milk and
other dairy products. Building optimal bone mass through a balanced diet, including
adequate calcium, may help delay the onset or limit your chances of developing
osteoporosis later in life. Osteoporosis is a disease in which reduced bone mass causes
bones to break easily. It occurs in both men and women, but is more common among older
women.
What's a Healthy Weight?
Some teens have a difficult time projecting a healthy weight
for themselves. Girls especially may think they need to be thinner than they are, or
should be. Extraordinary concern or obsession for thinness leads some teens to the eating
disorders of anorexia nervosa (dieting to starvation) or bulimia (overeating and then
vomiting). (See "On the Teen Scene: Eating Disorders
Require Medical Attention" in the March 1992 FDA Consumer.)
If you're concerned about your weight, it's important to
talk to a health professional such as your family doctor or the school nurse. That person
can help you decide whether you do need to lose weight and, if so, the best way to achieve
and maintain a weight that is healthy for you.
If health professionals recommend that you need to lose
weight, most experts say it's best to increase your exercise as the first step. Often
that's all teens need to do for weight control because they're rapidly growing. If eating
less is also necessary, it is best to continue eating a variety of foods while cutting
down on fats and sugars.
Losing weight quickly on a very-low-calorie diet is never a
good idea for anyone. And if you're into sports, you should be aware that it could affect
your athletic performance. Under no circumstances should you drink less fluid to lose
weight. A steady loss of a pound or so a week until you reach your goal is generally safe,
and you're more likely to be able to maintain your weight loss.
Skipping meals to lose weight is another poor idea. You're
likely to overeat at the next meal just because you're so hungry. And surveys show that
people who skip breakfast or other meals tend to have poorer nutrition than those who
don't.
Help for Healthy Eating
The food label can help nutrition-conscious people make wise
food choices. This can be important to teens who sometimes shop not only for themselves
but also for the whole family.
The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, enforced
by FDA, requires almost all food products to be labeled with the nutritive values they
contain per serving. Serving sizes now are more uniform across all product lines, so that
you can more easily compare the nutritional values of similar foods; for example, ice
cream and frozen yogurt. And the serving sizes are closer to amounts people really eat.
Also, the government has set strict definitions for claims
like "low fat" and "light," so when you see them, you can believe
them.
FDA now allows food labels to carry claims about the
relationship between a food or nutrient and a disease or health-related condition; for
example, calcium and a reduced risk of osteoporosis, a bone disease; and sodium and an
increased risk of high blood pressure. So far, FDA has approved 10 claims, which are
supported by significant scientific evidence.
Thanks to the growing scientific knowledge about diet and
health relationships, healthy eating is more socially "in" than ever before.
Eating a healthy diet is not difficult with knowledge of a few of the basics and can help
you excel on the playing field, in school and in your social life.
Judith Foulke is a member of FDA's Public Affairs Staff.
Dietary Guidelines for All Americans
What should Americans eat to stay healthy? These guidelines,
published by the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, reflect
recommendations of nutrition authorities who agree that enough is known about the effect
of diet on health to encourage certain dietary practices. The guidelines are:
