Healthy eating habits

1
HEALTHY EATING HABITS FOR TEENAGERS
2
How to encourage healthy eating habits in
teenagers

being a healthy eating role model.
creating a healthy food environment at home.
talking about healthy eating in positive ways.

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC
BY-SA-NC.
3
Eating and eating habits in teenagers
As children begin puberty, they often feel
hungrier and eat more. Thats because their
bodies go through a major growth spurt in the
teenage years. Extra food gives your child extra
energy and nutrients to support this growth and
development.
4
CREATING A HEALTHY FOOD ENVIRONMENT

• Ask your child to help with your familys food
  shopping and meal planning.
• Encourage your child to take responsibility for
  planning and preparing one healthy family meal a
  week.
• Limit unhealthy food options in your home, and
  make it easy for your child to find healthy food
  at home. For example, keep a bowl of fruit on the
  bench, a container of chopped vegies in the
  fridge, wholegrain bread in the freezer, and
  wholegrain crackers in the cupboard.

5

• Talk about your enjoyment and interest in the
  healthy food youre eating. This can encourage
  your child to enjoy eating healthy food too.

6
Talking about food

• Avoid restricting foods or describing them as
  good, bad, naughty and so on. Instead, aim
  for balance  eat healthy most of the time, and
  every now and then you might like to eat
  sometimes foods.
• Teach your child to eat when theyre hungry and
  to stop when theyre full. This helps your child
  learn to recognize whether theyre eating out of
  true hunger or eating out of boredom or
  tiredness. But you can expect your child to eat a
  lot more while theyre growing and developing.

7
Risks of unhealthy eating habits in teenagers
8
Eating too muchEating too much food,
particularly unhealthy food, puts your child at
risk of overweight and obesity.
An overweight or obese child is at an increased
risk of type-2 diabetes, sleep apnoea and hip and
joint problems. Long-term risks include heart
disease and some cancers.
9
THANK YOU