Introduction
Proper nutrition for adolescents (from 10-14 years to 18 years) is essential in forming a healthy, growing body. During this time, the body’s sensitivity to numerous environmental influences changes dramatically, body weight increases, and there is significant tissue growth, maturation of physiological systems, and puberty. The body grows fast between the ages of ten and thirteen; between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, the endocrine glands are actively formed, and several portions of the brain are formed.
During this phase, the visible unequal growth of several biological systems leads to increased weariness, irritability, excitability, and negativity. According to statistics, a poor diet causes around 30% of chronic illnesses in teenagers who attend educational institutions. The prevalence of metabolic disorders (obesity), gastrointestinal tract ailments, and anemia in teenagers has recently grown.
Energy expenditure in teenagers is substantially higher than in adults. A diet deficient in calories causes fast depletion and malfunctioning of all systems and organs. The fundamental guarantee of a well-balanced diet is its diversity. Achieved by balancing the adolescent diet to include a varied range of plant and animal foods.
The teenager’s daily diet must contain vegetables and butter, meat, milk, dairy drinks, wheat, and rye bread (at each meal). Two or three weeks can contain eggs, salmon, cottage cheese, and cheese. Also, teens’ diets must be balanced in terms of the key nutrients: lipids, proteins, carbs, minerals, and vitamins. Recently, there has been much research on how to make the diet of adults and children healthier and how to get people worldwide to follow these recommendations.
Article Review
I chose the paper “Trends in Food Sources and Food Quality Among U.S. Children and Adults, 2003-2018,” by Junxiu Liu, Renata Micha, Yan Li, and Dariush Mozaffarian. It is essential since it is supported by years of study and trustworthy sources. It is also worth noting that most authors have Ph.D. The study was prompted by existing trends and variations in the nutritional content of meals from key sources in the United States, such as grocery stores, restaurants, schools, workplaces, and others that remained unknown.
This study aimed to look at patterns and trends in nutritional quality by food source and sociodemographic category among children and adults in the United States. From 2003-2004 to 2017-2018, this study examined eight cross-sectional cycles of the nationally representative National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) (Liu et al., 2021). The data was studied from April 16, 2020, to July 20, 2020.
Nutritional evaluations comprised up to two 24-hour diets for which respondents recorded all meals, snacks, and drinks (Liu et al., 2021). Starting in 2003-2004, each participant reported the source of each food item, divided into grocery shops, restaurants, children’s schools, adult workplaces, and other sources for this study (Liu et al., 2021). Researchers also independently analyzed full-service restaurants against fast-food restaurants/fast-food outlets and schools with limited enrollment from kindergarten to 12th grade in the secondary study.
All participants in the research provided written informed consent. The study comprised 20,905 children aged 5 to 19 in the United States and 39,757 adults aged 20 and up (Liu et al., 2021). During this period, 99.4% of children and 99.5% of adults purchased food from grocery stores, 61.7% of children and 61.9% of adults purchased food from restaurants, 42.4% of children and 12.4% of adults purchased food from schools, and 47.1% of children and 50.4% of adults purchased food from other sources (Liu et al., 2021).
Researchers observed that in 2017-2018, school food quality had grown dramatically and evenly, providing the most excellent average food quality of any primary food source (Liu et al., 2021). There were moderate improvements in food quality for food purchased at grocery stores, minor improvements for food purchased at restaurants, and steady or deteriorating food quality for food purchased at restaurants. Restaurants and food quality that remain constant or worsen for food consumed from other sources are distinguished by a consistent or growing discrepancy.
Conclusion
The balance and quality of nutrition significantly impact people’s health, not only for those currently malnourished but also for their future children, since the predisposition to many diseases is genetically inherited. The spread of alimentary-dependent diseases increases the cost of health care, one of the most essential items of the state budget. This requires considering health and its determinants as socio-economic categories.
Good nutrition is one of the most critical components of a healthy lifestyle. Among the factors influencing the health of the modern generation of people, the WHO report highlights the following: the rate of changes in the diet and lifestyle of the population has increased in recent decades due to high rates of urbanization, economic development, and market globalization (Wang et al., 2021). This has significantly impacted public health and diet quality, particularly in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.
Although the standard of living in these types of countries has generally improved, food has become more accessible and varied, and access to services has improved; this has not, however, eliminated the problems associated with poor nutrition. To get rid of the problem of access to proper food, the problem of inequality must be fundamentally addressed. This would solve not only this problem but many others. This includes access to health care, legal aid, and many other global problems of inequality.
References
Liu, J., Micha, R., Li, Y., & Mozaffarian, D. (2021). Trends in food sources and diet quality among US children and adults, 2003-2018. JAMA Network Open, 4(4), e215262-e215262. Web.
Wang, Y., Zhao, L., Gao, L., Pan, A., & Xue, H. (2021). Health policy and public health implications of obesity in China. The lancet Diabetes & endocrinology, 9(7), 446-461. Web.