Healthy diet for teenage girls

by Elizabeth
(Healthy Eating Made Easy)

Teenage girls have the least healthy diet in the UK, according to a report from the Food Standards Agency.

Girls aged 11-18 consume way too much high fat/sugar junk food such as sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks and go short of essential nutrients like iron and calcium found in leafy green veg, milk and dairy produce, which are essential for healthy bone growth and to prevent anaemia.

Younger children eat a better diet, but once kids reach high school they're away from home for longer and have more freedom over what they eat when Mum's not keeping an eye of them. That's when girls tend to start dieting, missing meals, surviving on junk food during the day and refusing healthy food in the evening.

It's up to parents to set a good role model, and do all they can to provide a healthy diet for teens. Government needs to act as well, to persuade or force manufacturers to produce healthier foods and to cut the amount of sugar, salt and unhealthy fats in the foods our kids are eating.