Adolescents! What you eat can ‘make’ or ‘break’ you
They are the crucial “in-between” years spanning childhood and adulthood. Adolescence, from 10 to 19 years, is the most important transition period in a human being’s life, marked by major physiological, biochemical, cognitive, emotional and social changes, MediScene learns.
What “makes” or “breaks” a boy or girl on the threshold of adulthood would be the nutrition taken in adolescene. Nutrition plays a “vital” role in getting the “optimal outcome” in adulthood, reiterates Medical Officer Dr. Athulla Wijesundera of the Health Education Unit of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, Colombo.
Adolescent girls will later become young women and mothers and if their nutrition has been poor, the pregnancies will result in low birth-weight babies. These babies, in turn, will become weak adolescents who will once again have weak babies, he says, painting a grim image of the vicious circle in which society would be trapped.
The biological changes during adolescence are:
- Increased dietary requirements for energy, protein and micronutrients due to physical development. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) micronutrients, although needed in minuscule amounts, are the ‘magic wands’ that allow the production of enzymes, hormones and other substances essential for right growth and development.
- Growth spurt
- Sexual maturity and onset of puberty
- Changes in body composition, with an increase in the fat, muscle and bone mass. “The peak bone mass is achieved at the end of adolescence and early adulthood,” points out Dr. Wijesundera.
Pointing out the scenario that most parents face, Dr. Wijesundera says adolescents tend to skip meals especially breakfast; eat more meals from outside the home; consume a high amount of snacks, fast food, sweets and fizzy drinks; take in low quantities of vegetables, fruit and green leaves as well as calcium; and lead a sedentary lifestyle with reduced physical activity, only moving from TV to computer.
They could easily go along the pathway of eating unhealthy food which leads to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes.
Here is where the numbers come into play – an adolescent girl needs 2,100-2,500 kilocalories of energy per day, while a boy in the same age-group would need 2,300-3,300, MediScene understands.
The “peak energy requirement” for an adolescent girl is between the age of 11 to 14 years and a boy 15 to 18 years. The danger, stresses Dr. Wijesundera, is that if adolescents get this energy requirement from unhealthy or junk food, it’s a sure way to becoming obese and also a victim of NCDs.
Giving a basic lesson on the right foods, he says that simple carbohydrates such as bread, fish buns and pastries should be avoided and complex carbohydrates which include rice, yams and rice-flour preparations consumed. Fats should provide only 15-30% of the energy intake daily and saturated fats (red meat and meat products, coconut and coconut oil) should be less than 10%. Trans fats (deep-fried food and bakery products including biscuits, cakes and some margarines) should be less than 1%, MediScene understands.
Referring to the protein requirement, Dr. Wijesundera said adolescent girls need 1.3gms per kilogram of body weight per day and boys 1.4.
Iron is an essential micronutrient which increases blood volume and muscle mass. In adolescent girls, depending on the eating habit, with menstruation there could be a high risk of iron-deficiency anaemia, it is learnt. While in the school-going age this could diminish cognitive function, performance in the classroom and physical activity, in pregnancy it could cause premature labour and low birth-weight babies.
Dr. Wijesundera groups iron-rich food into two – haem iron which includes fish, poultry, meat and dried fish and non-haem iron which includes green leaves and cereals.
For optimal bone development, 1,000 milligrams of calcium per day are also required and would protect against hip fractures in later life. Calcium which comes from small fish, katuru-murunga and murunga, coupled with Vitamin D from sunlight and moderate exercise such as housework, gardening or dancing for about 30 minutes, would do the needful, he says.
While less than 5 gms of salt are required as the daily intake, Dr. Wijesundera cautions against processed food which is loaded with salt.
Last but not least is fibre of which 25-45 gms per day are required. Found in abundance in both vegetables and fruit, he points out that fibre lowers blood cholesterol and prevents colonic cancer.
When and how to take some foods
Little pointers on how best to take some foods are given by Dr. Wijesundera
- Tea and coffee should be drunk only one hour before and one hour after a meal which includes plant origin food, as they hinder folate absorption.
- The addition of lime or tamarind (siyambala) increases iron absorption.
- If mung and kadala are soaked overnight before cooking, iron absorption is greater.
- If Maldive fish or dried fish is added to leaves when cooked,iron absorption better.
- The ‘wonder food’ for calcium is murunga leaves.
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