Thursday, October 31, 2013

Teen Fitness, Teen Health and College Health: Small, Easy Changes Before Big Ones

Teen fitness, teen health and college health issues are everywhere. Teen fitness because teens are overweight, college health because of the "freshman 15" and teen health because of weight issues like Type II Diabetes.How can we make issues like teen fitness and college health less of such an incredible concern? When people talk about "teen health", how can we make sure the conversations are about how great our teen health is? Why can't "teen fitness" mean how fit our teens are?When trying to change things like college health and teen fitness, we need to look at the micro instead of the macro. Sure, teen health wouldn't be a big deal if all the McDonalds in the country were gone. And sure, college health would be a lot better if college students didn't drink. And finally, teen fitness would be a lot better if everyone made a varsity sport and there weren't any vending machines in cafeterias.But lets face it, college health, teen health and teen fitness is at the forefront of our society's concerns because these things aren't true. Because of this, college health and teen fitness will not improve with drastic changes. Teen health will be improved with small changes.Sure, fixing college health would be great by eliminating keggers. And obviously teen health and teen fitness would improve without the Internet. But in today's day and age, these things aren't going to happen. Teen health and teen fitness will continue to diminish and college health will keep getting worse without small changes.Simple ways to improve teen health, college health and teen fitness:-Look for healthier options at the vending machines. Teen health is declining every time a student chooses a Ho Ho, Twinkie or packet of M&M's. Most vending machines have healthier options.
Small change needed to improve teen health and teen fitness: Switch to a healthier snack like pretzels or baked chips. Or, if you can't do that, try to only hit the vending machine once every other day. Either choice will save you hundreds of calories a day. This will certainly help teen health and teen fitness.-Workout, but remember, this doesn't mean for 90 minutes a day. Teen health, teen fitness and college health wouldn't be as bad if students exercised a half hour a day. That's all you need. (Go to [http://www.GenerationYfitness.com] for free and short workouts) Working out for 90 minutes is a thing of the past, and teen health, college health and teen fitness would be improved if you realized this.-Watch liquid calories for better teen health and teen fitness. By liquid calories I mean everything from beer (college health would be a lot better!) to soda. And, what some people don't realize, is there are more calories in a regular soda than a beer! Liquid calories certainly add up and are clearly affecting teen health and college health.
Small change to improve teen health and college health: Switch to diet soda, and if you must consume alcohol, switch to light beer and cut down on the drinking in general to save thousands of calories (and dozens of pounds of fat).-Learn to read! Teen health and college health would be improved if you learned to read...nutritional labels, of course. Teen fitness would be fixed if you read these and learned how bad the food is that you're eating actually is. And, teen fitness and teen health would be improved if you learned about serving size.
Small change to improve college health and teen fitness: Stick to serving sizes when snacking.College health and teen fitness doesn't need drastic changes to improve. Teen health can be fixed with small changes first, then drastic changes after.