Puberty Nutritional Guidelines

Nutritional guidelines for Filipinos appropriate during puberty

 

For you to grow and develop to the fullest and to improve your

nutritional status, it is important to follow healthy eating guidelines such

as:

· Eat a variety of foods daily.

Foods contain combinations of nutrients and other healthful substances. No single food can supply all nutrients in the amounts you need. For example, oranges provide vitamin C but no vitamin B12; cheese provides vitamin B12 but no vitamin C. To make sure you get all of the nutrients and other substances needed for health, choose the recommended number of daily servings from each of the five major food groups

· Maintain a healthy weight.

Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is important for overall health and can help you prevent and control many diseases and conditions. If you are overweight or obese, you are at higher risk of developing serious health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers. That is why maintaining a healthy weight is so important: It helps you lower your risk for developing these problems, helps you feel good about yourself, and gives you more energy to enjoy life. 

· Eat foods that are low in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

• Choose foods with healthy fats, limit foods high in saturated fat, and avoid foods with trans fat.
• “Good” fats—monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats—lower disease risk. Foods high in good fats include vegetable oils (such as olive, canola, sunflower, soy, and corn), nuts, seeds, and fish.
• “Bad” fats—saturated and, especially, trans fats—increase disease risk. Foods high in bad fats include red meat, butter, cheese, and ice cream, as well as processed foods made with trans fat from partially hydrogenated oil.

Cholesterol

Although it is still important to limit the amount of cholesterol you eat, especially if you have diabetes, for most people dietary cholesterol isn’t nearly the villain it’s been portrayed to be. Cholesterol in the bloodstream, specifically the bad LDL cholesterol, is what’s most important. And the biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats and carbohydrates in your diet—not the amount of cholesterol you eat from food.

· To lower the risk of heart diseases, avoid too much cholesterol in your diet.

When there is too much cholesterol (a fat-like substance) in your blood, it builds up in the walls of your arteries. Over time, this buildup causes "hardening of the arteries" so that arteries become narrowed and blood flow to the heart is slowed down or blocked. The blood carries oxygen to the heart, and if enough blood and oxygen cannot reach your heart, you may suffer chest pain. If the blood supply to a portion of the heart is completely cut off by a blockage, the result is a heart attack.
High blood cholesterol itself does not cause symptoms, so many people are unaware that their cholesterol level is too high. It is important to find out what your cholesterol numbers are because lowering cholesterol levels that are too high lessens the risk for developing heart disease and reduces the chance of a heart attack or dying of heart disease, even if you already have it. Cholesterol lowering is important for everyone--younger, middle age, and older adults; women and men; and people with or without heart disease.

· Consume milk, milk products and other calcium-rich foods, such as small fish & dark green leafy vegetables daily.

· Eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, root crops, and grain products.

• Eating a diet rich in vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may reduce risk for heart disease, including heart attack and stroke.
• Eating a diet rich in some vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet may protect against certain types of cancers.
• Diets rich in foods containing fiber, such as some vegetables and fruits, may reduce the risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
• Eating vegetables and fruits rich in potassium as part of an overall healthy diet may lower blood pressure, and may also reduce the risk of developing kidney stones and help to decrease bone loss.
• Eating foods such as vegetables that are lower in calories per cup instead of some other higher-calorie food may be useful in helping to lower calorie intake.

Root crops and legumes intake help maintain weight and prevent risk for diabetes mellitus.  The viscosity and fibrous structure of root crops and legumes slow down digestion and release of glucose in the blood.  This process maintains blood glucose in normal condition.

· Use sugar in moderation.

So what happens if you eat too much sugar? Here's a depressing rundown.

1. Cavities

Trust your dentist on this one: Sugar is such an enemy to dental health that one study way back in 1967 called it the "arch criminal" behind cavities. The connection between sugar and cavities is perhaps the best established. "Tooth decay occurs when the bacteria that line the teeth feed on simple sugars, creating acid that destroys enamel," Anahad O'Connor explains at The New York Times. Because acid is a key culprit, sour candies are especially nefarious.

Source: Journal of the American Dental Association, 2009; ISRN Dentistry, 2013; International Dental Journal, 2013

2. Insatiable hunger

Leptin is a hormone that lets your body know when you've had enough to eat. In people who develop leptin resistance, this "I'm full" signal is never received, presenting a major obstacle for weight control.

Some studies have raised the possibility that leptin resistance may be a side effect of obesity, not a contributing cause. But research in rats suggests that overconsumption of fructose can directly lead to higher-than-normal levels of leptin, which can reduce your body's sensitivity to the hormone. Removing fructose from the rats' diets generally reversed those effects.

"Our data indicate that chronic fructose consumption induces leptin resistance prior to body weight ... increases, and this fructose-induced leptin resistance accelerates high-fat induced obesity," concluded one 2008 study in rats. Still, more research is needed to test whether these effects hold true in humans as well.

Source: American Journal of Physiology, 2008; American Journal of Physiology, 2009; British Journal of Nutrition, 2011; Advances in Nutrition, 2012

3. Weight gain

Other than adopting a completely sedentary lifestyle, there are few routes to packing on the pounds that work as swiftly and assuredly as making large amounts of added sugars a staple of your daily diet. Sugary foods are full of calories but will do little to satiate your hunger. A 2013 review of 68 different studies found "consistent evidence that increasing or decreasing intake of dietary sugars from current levels of intake is associated with corresponding changes in body weight in adults." Want to lose weight? Cutting your sugar intake is a good place to start.

Source: British Medical Journal, 2013; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2013

4. Insulin resistance

When you eat a lot of high-sugar meals — donuts for breakfast, anyone? — it can increase your body's demand for insulin, a hormone that helps your body convert food into usable energy. When insulin levels are consistently high, your body's sensitivity to the hormone is reduced, and glucose builds up in the blood. Symptoms of insulin resistance can include fatigue, hunger, brain fog, and high blood pressure. It's also associated with extra weight around the middle. Still, most people don't realize they are insulin resistant until it develops into full-blown diabetes — a much more serious diagnosis.

Source: The American Journal of Cardiology, 1999; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2002; Nutrition & Metabolism, 2005

5. Diabetes

Between 1988 and 2008, the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. increased by 128%. Diabetes now affects about 25 million people in the U.S. — that's 8.3% of the population.

One study that followed 51,603 women between 1991 and 1999 found an increased risk of diabetes among those who consumed more sugar-sweetened beverages — that's soda, sweetened ice tea, energy drinks, etc. And a massive review of previous research involving 310,819 participants supported this result, concluding that drinking lots of soda was associated not just with weight gain but with the development of type 2 diabetes.

Portion control may be especially crucial when it comes to sugar. "Duration and degree of sugar exposure correlated significantly with diabetes prevalence ... while declines in sugar exposure correlated with significant subsequent declines in diabetes rates" — even after controlling for other socioeconomic and dietary factors, concluded a 2013 study of eating habits and diabetes prevalence in 175 countries.

Source: JAMA, 2004; Diabetes Care, 2010; PLOS ONE, 2013

6. Obesity

Obesity is one of the most-cited risks of excess sugar consumption. Just one can of soda each day could lead to 15 pounds of weight gain in a single year, and each can of soda increases the odds of becoming obese, a JAMA study noted.

Sugar may well raise the risk of obesity directly, but the association could be mediated by diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or other diet and exercise habits associated with high-sugar diets. And it's possible that soda is uniquely pernicious, above and beyond other sugary foods.

o Eating too much sweet foods contributes to tooth decay.

· Eat clean and safe food, cook food in edible/cooking oil.

· Use iodized salt but avoid excessive intake of salty foods. Too much 

salt in the diet may increase the risk of having high blood pressure.

Remember, healthy eating will reduce your risk of suffering from fatal diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. 

Healthy eating is important for proper growth and development. It can also prevent health problems, such as obesity, dental caries, iron deficiency, and osteoporosis.

 Women are prone to osteoporosis, so teenage girls should eat enough foods rich in calcium. This will help build strong bones to protect them from osteoporosis later in life.

Eating a wide variety of foods in moderation daily is a good practice