Topic 1: Required calories
Our body needs energy to function and grow. Calories from food and drink give you this energy. Balancing the energy we take in through food and drink with the energy we use for growth, activities and daily living is called “energy balance”. Energy balance can help us maintain a healthy weight. Let’s think of food as energy to charge the battery for the whole day. During the day, we use battery energy to think and move, so we need to eat and drink to stay energized. Different people need different amounts of calories to be active or maintain a healthy weight. The number of calories we need depends on whether we are male or female, your genes, age, height and weight, whether we are still growing and how active we are, which may not be the same every day.
How should you manage or control your weight?
Some teenagers try to lose weight by eating very little; they eliminate entire food groups, such as carbohydrate foods or “carbs”; they skip meals; whether they are fasting.
These approaches to weight loss can be unhealthy because they can leave out important nutrients that the body needs. In fact, an unhealthy diet can hinder your weight management by creating a cycle where you eat very little and then overeat because you’re too hungry. An unhealthy diet can also affect mood and growth.
Smoking, vomiting or using diet pills or laxatives to lose weight can also cause health problems. If you induce vomiting or use diet pills or laxatives to control your weight, you may have signs of a serious eating disorder and should talk to your doctor or another trusted adult right away. If you smoke, which increases your risk of heart disease, cancer and other health problems, quit smoking as soon as possible.
If you think you need to lose weight, talk to your doctor first. Healthy eating involves controlling the amount and type of food you eat and the drinks you drink. It is very healthy to replace foods high in sugar, salt, and unhealthy fats with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-protein foods, and fat-free or low-fat dairy products.
