Teens & Body Image
Are you between 11 and 19 years?
Do you sometimes worry about the way your body looks?
You should know that it is completely natural for you to be increasingly aware of your body at your age. Your “Body Image” is your impression of what your body looks like. In your impression, do you think you are satisfied with your body?, its size and shape, or have you regularly had any of these thoughts?
“ I think I am too thin”
Or ,
” I think I am too fat”
Or,
“ I think I don’t have enough muscle” .
When you describe your eating habits, would you say….
“I think I am too thin so I try to eat frequently, especially snacks”.
Or,
“I think I am too fat, so I miss my meals
Or,
“I want to have a body like a famous actress so I often skip my dinner”
Or,
“ I want to have a body like a body builder so I eat a lot of food and carry weights”
If the answer is yes to any of these, you have changed your eating habits due to your body image. This is common in adolescence and most of us have gone through a stage like this. Yet, at certain times it can negatively affect your health and general happiness. So it is best to understand what your body needs during this time and what is good and bad for you.
Is this you, or a close friend of yours……...?
Amaya watches hindi films in the weekend and has a dream actress who she wants to be like…”Oh how I wish I was pretty like her - just look at her body, how slim…. That’s what I want to be”. Amaya always skips her dinner. In the middle of the night she is so hungry and sometimes has a burning pain in her chest. “But all this is worth if I can be like her!” thinks Amaya.
Amaya was sitting on a stone in the playground watching her friends play. Sahansa asked her to join in repeatedly, but she refused saying she is tired. During the class she often falls asleep. Sahansa: “why don’t you ever come and play with us now?”
This is what happened next…
Her friends are worried about her and have seen how she is always tired and cannot concentrate in class. They persuade their teacher to tell her mother to take her to a doctor, which her mother eventually does. A few months after the doctors visit Amaya meets her friends looking fresh and happy.
Sahansa: “ Amaya you look so fresh and beautiful! ”
Amaya blushing, “the doctor weighed me and did some blood tests and said that I was iron deficient and maybe calcium deficient also, and she said I was too thin for my age, and said my body will not grow well and look healthy and lovely if I don’t eat well. She told me lots of things about food and being active and showed me how to keep my body looking good. She said that you need adequate exercise and play in addition to eating well to be healthy and happy. She was right, I was not happy doing what I believed was right. I think I was doing it all wrong and it was making me ill.”
Do you know? To keep yourself healthy and looking good you need to eat the right things. You can’t do it by not eating!
This is what you have to do…come …I’ll tell you all…..
- All the girls: ”YES. YES”.
- The boys: “but what is the use of this to us? We want good muscles, not like you girls!”
Amaya: “the doctor said, that both boys and girls need a healthy eating pattern. Boys need more food than girls of the same age, but to stay normal weight for your height and age, you need to make sure that your plate of rice has the right proportions of foods. Then you will have all the micronutrients you need like iron, folic acid, calcium and zinc”
A nutritious meal should include the following:
- 1/3 of the plate with rice, balanced with another 1/3 with vegetables and fruit
- The other 1/3 with fish/meat/poultry/
- Pulses/egg and dairy products
Remember to include all the food groups such as fruits & vegetables”,
1 portion of :
- Dhal = 3 table spoons
- Vegetables = 3 table spoons
- Dark green leaves (mallun) = ½ small tea cup
- Fish /meat= 1 matchbox size piece (30 - 40g)
- Egg = 1 egg
- Milk = 200ml fresh milk (unsweetened)/1 yoghurt/1 wedge cheese.
When you eat fresh vegetables and fruits, wash them thoroughly in fresh clean running water. If you doubt that these foods are contaminated in anyway, you may wash with a mild soap solution using a non perfumed and non detergent, cake or bar soap, before pealing the skin. But ensure that you wash off all the soap. Soap removes all oily substances that maybe on the surface of fruit and vegetables including most contaminant chemicals.
If you are eating more than 3 main meals and 2 snacks per day and not doing heavy sports, and you are not particularly hungry when you eat, check if you are over eating. Take a check on the types of food you are eating… If you are eating a lot of the foods below, what should you do….
Reduce unhealthy snacks by reducing the amount you are currently eating…this will help to reduce,
- Sugar to less than 4 -6 teaspoons/day
- Salt to less than 1 teaspoon/day
- Oil by minimizing fried foods
Foods to reduce :
- (unhealthy snacks): murukku, chips, mixture, deep fried foods, kottu
- If you are occasionally eating a high fat food, reduce portion size and add fruits to the meal.
Amaya: “did you know, the best way to say if your body is the right size and shape is to weigh and measure you height and calculate your Body Mass Index = weight ( in Kg)/ height 2 M). Then you can look in the BMI chart to see if you’re ok for your age and there are separate tables for boys and girl”.
Well, you may be hungry because you are still growing and growing children like you need more energy. Also, if you are a very physically active person you will need more energy. If so, yes you will need 2 snacks in between your main meals. But a snack should be a healthy one.
Healthy snacks keep you feeling good as they nourish your body with vitamins and minerals, while not adding unwanted fat.
Fruits are a good snack. Have you tried keeping cut fresh fruit in a closed container in the refrigerator, so that you have ready-made fruit at any time? This way you can have interesting combinations of fruit all the time.
You can liquidize fruit with yogurt, and that will fill you for a snack! Try cut carrot cucumber cooled, which you can eat with cheese and grapes. You can make a dip with blended boiled chickpea and a bit of cheese, or mustard and tomato puree and dip the vegetable in it. If you are very hungry you can add some crackers.
Chopped onions and tomatoes and green chilies, piled on a cream cracker with some chutney.
Sandwiches can be healthy by including a fish/meat/egg with some fresh vegetables. Make sandwiches with a thick layer of filling, its tasty and healthy!
If you enjoy cooking, add one egg, ¼ cup flour a little milk and add chopped carrot, leaks, winged beans, mix roll out and cook on an open pan. Be imaginative and add any precooked vegetables that are left over.
Try baking cutlets and patties and rolls - that way you have no added frying oil! And you can still taste the food you like.
You can begin by reducing the amount you eat at one time (per sitting) and also always eat it after a main meal. Eat it slowly thinking about its taste. This way you will both enjoy what you eat, and also not need to have more and more. Never eat food while doing something else, then you forget to enjoy it, and will be tempted to overeat.
A mid morning and a mid afternoon healthy snack is usually ok, but if you are doing sports, then you need to consult your coach/nutritionist/doctor regarding the timing of your snacks.
You may be asked to eat a good meal 2 hours before the event, and then have a snack soon after you finish, with adequate drink before during and after your practice or event. What you have and how much you need, will vary with the type of sport and should be calculated for you, but you can be guided by the general advice given above.
You need more energy and all food groups if you are expending a lot of energy on sports. Therefore you will need to eat more food than your peers. As long as you stay within the same recommended food groups and proportions per day, you will achieve your balance despite having to eat more quantity.
During growth, at this time in your life, if you have enough nutrition, your muscle mass will increase according to your age. Muscle toning and exercise is good throughout life and is a good habit to inculcate, but during adolescence you need to be correctly guided by a sports expert, as otherwise you can damage not only your muscles but also your joints. Staying fit is important, but must be done under correct guidance.
The time you spend sitting around should be as low as possible and less than 2 hours per day. Sitting around includes TV watching, reading, playing computer games etc and has been shown to increase risk of many diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease hypertension and stroke in adult life, and now early risk factors for these are beginning to be seen in adolescents as well. Sitting for long periods is known as sedentary behavior and is not a healthy behavior.
If you must do these activities for long hours, make sure you stand up and walk around several times between. You can take this opportunity to drink water, which is also something that gets neglected during a busy day.
Yes, it is now known that sedentary behavior has negative effects on health even if you are physically active. Also, those who are both physically inactive and sedentary have the greatest risk.