Standard Handbook of Healthy Eating for Teenagers

There is no uniform dietary gram table suitable for all children. The core of a healthy diet for teenagers is to adhere to the three bottom lines of "meeting basic nutrition standards, adapting to individual development/exercise needs, and avoiding foods with clear carcinogenic/obesity risks." The rest can be flexibly adjusted according to family eating habits and children's tastes. Overly strict restrictions can easily be counterproductive.

Don't get confused when you hear the word "standard" and take out a small notebook to record the number of grams. You really can't do it. I met a mother who was in the third grade of junior high school when I was following up in the nutrition department. In order to supplement nutrition for her child who was preparing for the exam, she accurately weighed and prepared meals every day: 250ml of whole milk, 1 boiled egg, 50g of whole wheat bread in the morning, 100g of lean beef, 200g of green leafy vegetables, 150g of brown rice at noon, and a pot of fish maw soup in the evening. No more snacks were allowed to be touched. As a result, the child fainted on the playground after playing football for half an hour before the mold, and his blood sugar was as low as 2.8. Do you think it was unfair? This child has to practice football for an hour every day to prepare for the physical education examination, and consumes almost one-third more than an ordinary sedentary junior high school student. Of course, the standard meal plan is not enough.

Speaking of this, someone must have asked, there must be a reference for the so-called basic nutrition standards, right? It’s not completely unreasonable. Teenagers aged 11-17 are in the period of growth spurt. The recommended intake of calcium is 1000mg per day, which is 200mg higher than that of adults. It is about the amount of two boxes of pure milk and a small spoonful of sesame paste. You don’t have to buy expensive calcium tablets. If you have enough dietary supplements, there is no need to take additional supplements. Oh, yes, I have to mention here, don’t use sweet milk and milk drinks to make up for the loss. Half of them are sugar, and they don’t supplement much calcium, so your weight will go up first. There used to be a 14-year-old boy who grew 8cm in six months and kept complaining about leg pain. His bone density was low. This was because he usually only drank strawberry-flavored milk. Later, he switched to pure milk. He added a small spoonful of sesame paste mixed with spinach to his meals every day. He no longer complained about pain in a month.

There is still a very controversial point: can children touch high-sugar foods such as milk tea and cola? The two schools of thought have been arguing for several years. The school that calls for total abstinence from sugar has obtained research data from the Lancet: if adolescents consume more than 10% of total energy in free sugar, the risk of dental caries and obesity is 47% higher than that of children who control it within 5%. Long-term high sugar can also affect attention. The basis of the other school is also very solid: a three-year follow-up study conducted by Beijing Normal University Psychology found that children who were completely prohibited from eating snacks and high-sugar foods in middle and high school were 2.3 times more likely to overeat high-sugar foods after going to college than those who were not strictly restricted. On the contrary, they were more likely to develop eating disorders. In fact, there is really no need to be black and white. Normally, the free sugar should be controlled within 25g per day (about 6 tablespoons of white sugar), and the child should be allowed to "free up the quota" once a week. On weekends, he can go shopping with his classmates to drink half-sugar milk tea and eat ice cream. There is no problem at all. It is better than secretly saving up money to buy three sugar-free snacks at the school gate.

There is another question that people ask a lot: If the family is vegetarian, will it affect the development of the child? This really depends on the situation. If parents know how to mix, eat enough whole grains + high-quality soy products + dark green vegetables every day, and supplement with additional vitamin B12, they can fully meet their development needs. I have seen several children from vegetarian families whose height and weight are in the middle and upper reaches of the growth curve, and their physical fitness is also good. But if you make a mistake and feed your child only white porridge and vegetables every day, and rarely eat soy products, then something will definitely go wrong. Previously, a parent fed his child a vegetarian diet for two years without supplementing nutrients. The child was always sleepy in class and had poor memory. After investigation, he found out that it was vitamin B12 deficiency, which affected neurological development. If you really plan to make your child a vegetarian, it is best to find a registered dietitian to make a diet plan in advance, rather than relying on your feelings.

Oh yes, there are two pitfalls that many parents are prone to fall into: one is that they always think that drinking soup is a nutritional supplement, especially the Guangdong Laohuo Liang soup, which is simmered for several hours. In fact, most of the soup is fat and purine, and the nutrients are all in the "dregs". Children drink soup every day to replenish their body. It is not known whether it is supplementing the body. I see many people with high uric acid and overweight. The other is to always buy "children's food" for children, such as children's soy sauce, children's noodles, and children's biscuits. In fact, most of them are IQ tax, and the content of salt and sugar is not low at all. Just look at the ingredient list and you will know that if the top items include white sugar and table salt, no matter how much they are labeled "children's", it will be useless.

To put it bluntly, this manual is never intended to draw red lines for parents. You can’t take out a food scale and weigh the grams every time you eat, right? As long as the child's height and weight increase every year is in line with the growth curve, he doesn't feel sleepy in class, has enough energy when exercising, and doesn't have minor problems such as frequent oral ulcers and constipation, and he doesn't have to worry about eating fried chicken and drinking milk tea occasionally. After all, eating, in addition to supplementing nutrition, should also be a happy thing.