Leslie Lytle, PhD, RD recently outlined in an article published by the American Dietetic Association some disturbing statistics about the nutritional health of adolescents in our country. Here is what she found:
·Only 34% of girls and 27% of boys aged 12 to 19 consume the appropriate amounts of saturated fat and total fat recommended by the American Heart Association to reduce risk for cardiovascular disease.
·Adolescents who are 12 to 15 years of age need to increase their fiber intake 25-50%, and adolescents between the ages 16 to 19 need to double their intake of fiber in order to meet the recommended intake of 25-30 grams a day.
·To increase fiber intake and decrease total fat and saturated fat intake, adolescents need to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables. Currently only 22% of boys and 23% of girls eat two or more servings of fruit per day, and only 38% of girls and 55% of boys eat at least three servings of vegetables. If you consider only consumption of dark green and deep yellow vegetables, less than 10% of teens eat the recommended daily servings of these vegetables.
·As a child becomes an adolescent, physical activity tends to decrease, especially for adolescent girls. This decrease in activity, along with over-consumption of calories, is leading to a threefold to tenfold increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes in this age group. For each pound of extra weight gained, risk for Type 2 diabetes is estimated to go up four percent.
·Data from the Bogalusa Heart Study found that 2.4% of overweight adolescents in the study developed Type 2 diabetes by the age of 30, while none of the normal weight adolescents did.
·While anorexia nervosa appears to affect only 1% of adolescent girls and bulimia only affects about 3%, anorexic and bulimic behaviors are becoming more common. These behaviors are similar to anorexic and bulimic symptoms but occur less often. The behaviors include fasting, taking diet pills, drinking special weight control liquids, or occasionally vomiting or using laxatives to control weight after eating or drinking excessively.
·Teens now drink twice the amount of soft drinks as milk. Girls who drink soft drinks consume 20% less calcium than non-consumers. This makes them likely to have low bone density increasing their risk for osteoporosis later in life. One study found that adolescent girls who consumed the most soft drinks were three times more likely to have a bone fracture than girls who did not consume any soft drinks.
·Fewer teens eat breakfast. According to one study by the American School Health Association, only 40% of children in the 8th to 10th grades had eaten breakfast two or more days during the week prior to the survey.
Clearly we have a group of adolescents who are at very high risk for early cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. How their health affects the future of our health care system and productivity as a nation will be interesting to see.
Source: Lytle, L. Nutritional issues for adolescents. Journal of the American Dietetic Association. March, 2000 Supplement, Vol. 102, No. 3: S8-S12.
Debbie Wilburn is County Agent/Family and Consumer Science Agent with the Hall (770)535-8290 and the Forsyth (770)887-2418 County Extension Service.
Monday
August 4th, 2025
2:33PM
