The Long Term Effects of Being an Obese Teenager

ByShruti T

The growing health concerns for teenage obesity are understandable. The outcome of teenage obesity is alarming when the heath perspective is seen. This is more annoying because the health troubles rising due teenage obesity trail off to adulthood. Reports suggest that obese teenagers are more likely to develop strokes, heart disease, cancers, high blood pressure, stress and depression in later years than non obese teens.

Further facts can get you more restless, however below are the long terms effects of being an obese teenager.

Teenager obesity: Long Term Health Problems

1. Orthopedic Problems

The body of an obese teen is not ready to bear excessive weight. This induces complications related to bones which shadow into adulthood. Teenage obesity can cause overgrowth of leg bones, limit motion and cause pain in hip plate and back.

2. Sleep Apnea (SA)

It is important for young teenagers to get good sleep, but many obese teenagers face Sleep Apnea. A kind of sleep disorder, SA causes obstruction in breathing, sometimes even stopping breathing altogether. This disturbs the sleep patterns for affected teen causing them to wake-up. In some cases this disorder does not cause conscious waking up, but prevents teens from getting deep sleep.

3. Asthma

Excessive weight also contributes to severe respiratory problems among teenagers in form of asthma

4. Hypertension

It is very rare to find blood fluctuation in teenagers, which can be tagged as abnormal blood pressure or hypertension. Due to growing teenage obesity the chances to find children with elevated blood pressure (ages 5 to 18) has increased. The occurrence is 9 times more frequent among obese teenagers with 2.4 times high diastolic blood pressure and 4.5 times for high systolic.

5. Social stigma & Psychosocial Effects

Obese teenagers are extremely conscious about their appearance. They repeatedly face teasing, petty jokes and casual remarks about their weight. This leads to the development of low self-esteem and lack of confidence. Such children cut themselves from people and friends, becoming inactive and lazy.

Repeated lack of appreciation makes them feel neglected and they further indulge in unhealthy eating habits. Depression in most obese teenagers have been reported which leaves them in extremely very week mental state in adulthood.

6. Diabetes (Type 2)

The probability for obese children to have high fasting blood insulin levels (a warning sign for type 2 diabetes) is 12.6 times more than non obese children. This is being the jarring consequences of teenage obesity, which is primary reason for increasing cases of Type 2 diabetes among teens and children alike.

Shruti T is a creative writer by profession and simply likes playing with words. As a writer she is influenced by "Pen is mightier than sword". She considers herself just a drop in sea of knowledge, but the passion for writing flickers constantly in her. For her, writing is the best medium to voice out thoughts and a consistent source of joy.

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Healthy Eating Choices - Being Polite Can Make You Fat

How can being polite can help you pack on those extra holiday pounds? It is not something we think about often, but being polite or considerate of other people's feelings can actually help us pack on more pounds than we care to think about. The real question is "How to stop gaining weight?" and still be polite when people are shoving food at you during the holidays.

Being polite does not help you lose weight. Especially during the holidays or at gatherings where there will be lots of food. We all over do it. We make our special dish for everyone to enjoy, then we fill our plates and eat to our hearts content. That's just the way it is during the holidays or at gatherings where food is served.

We make a lot of choices and decisions every day. It is part of life and during the holidays, we have even more choices to make. One of these concerns the dreaded holiday weight gain that we put on so easily, but lose with much difficulty. When there is a lot of delicious food available, how much we eat is entirely our decision. We know that if we eat too much, it can stay on our hips or belly for a very long time,

Holidays are a time when we all tend to eat too much. How many times when you go to a party, family gathering or just out to a smorgasbord, have you said, or heard someone say, "Man, I'm stuffed". But, consider this, eating too much is a choice, just one of the many choices we make every day.

The biggest problems:

1. We make too much. We all have three or four favorite holiday dishes that we know everyone just loves. So we make three or four dishes because, well, we love them and have a burning desire to make them happy. What better way to make them happy than with delicious food, lots of delicious food.

2. We eat too much. When we go to a holiday gathering, we sometimes feel obligated to try a little (or a lot) of everything. Think about how much food most people eat when they go to a buffet. The idea is to get as much as you can for your money and the food is so good anyway. And just look at that dessert bar. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.

3. Most of all, we don't want to hurt the feelings of the person that made their special dish (that's being polite). After all, they spent all that time preparing it, the least we can do is sample it, just to make them feel good about bringing their favorite dish.

What can we do about it?

We know that most people will overeat during holiday gatherings, and there are some simple things that you can try:

1. Find out how many people are going to be at the gathering. Many times, we prepare dishes without considering how many people are going to be there. And sometimes, children eat less than adults.

2. Don't make a lot of food. You don't have to feed an army. If everyone is bringing a dish, then there will be enough food, without any going to waste or anyone overeating.

3. Put smaller portions on you plate and leave the rest of the food for others (that's being polite). After all, how much you eat and how full you want to get is your choice. Make it a good choice and you just might avoid the anxiety that comes when we realize we have put on four or five pounds.

4. Help your guests by serving the food on smaller plates. People will usually eat as much food as they put on their plate. Smaller plates mean more trips to the food, but there will be more time between servings to allow the food to reach the stomach and send that "please, I'm full, no more food" signal to your brain.

How much we eat is a choice we make every day. You can make it easier to keep the holiday pounds off by looking at the choices you make during the holidays and every other day. It is your life, make the best choices you can and enjoy the holidays.

Avoiding holiday weight gain is all about making good choices about how you eat and how much you eat. It is exactly the same as any other time of the year, but with more temptation thrown at us. CLICK HERE and go to weight loss diet tips 101 to find out how to stop gaining weight and for free tips and information on losing weight and keeping it off.

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