FIT Teens

By Jenna Hanington

Have you ever been so stressed that you thought you might explode, or maybe just break down? You’re not alone. Stress affects everyone, and we all have different ways of dealing with it.

School can be stressful, no doubt about it. There’s the stress that comes from the pressure to get good grades, upcoming tests and projects, filling out college applications and competing in sports. Sometimes all of these things hit at the same time, which can make you feel like you’re holding the weight of the world on your shoulders.

There were a few times in high school when I really thought that stress was going to get the better of me. One night in particular, I remember sitting at my desk and staring at a long list of everything I still needed to do. Study for an AP test, do a math work sheet, finish a college application…and the list went on. Not to mention that I had a soccer game the next night and needed to be rested. Glancing at the clock, I realized it was already 10pm. It was going to be a long, stressful night.

Does this situation sound familiar? This was the first time that I really understood the dangers of procrastination. After staying up until 3 in the morning, I vowed to myself that I was going to make an effort to stop procrastinating. The best tool I found for this was to keep a planner for myself. I made schedules and “to-do” lists, kept track of when all of my school assignments were due and made lists of important application dates. Finally, I was on time for everything, and this made all the difference. No more late nights, no more rushed deadlines and no more “please keep me awake” bottles of soda.

Unfortunately, I sometimes found that keeping a planner wasn’t enough. Stress isn’t just about crazy schedules – we have worries that stress us out, too. Worried about what you got on your last test? Do you have try-outs for a sports team looming over your head? Take a few minutes and try some of the things that I used to do.  I promise, they help.

• Blow off steam by taking a walk, going for a jog or lifting some weights. Exercise has that wonderful ability to take our minds off of the stressful things in life while keeping us healthy at the same time.
• Leave yourself 30 minutes to  chill-out before bed (reading works for me). Having time to unwind is good for the mind and body.
• Schedule time to catch up with friends. Sometimes talking through the things that are stressing you out can help you put things in perspective.
• Take a power nap. A quick 30 minute nap can leave you feeling rejuvenated.

Penciling in these short activities can make you feel more balanced, less stressed out, and ultimately—healthier.

Jenna Hanington is a student at Georgia Tech studying Communications and Literature. She loves being physically active and spending time outdoors.

So who knew that getting enough sleep was super important if you are trying to be healthier?  It’s true – you need eight or maybe even nine hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.  When you are able to get that, your brain is sharper, AND your body is stronger, with a faster metabolism!  Strong body plus faster metabolism equals a healthier body and weight.

Here’s what to do:

1.       Drink little to no caffeine. That means most tea and soda, even diet. If you are going to drink even a little, drink it before 2:00 in the afternoon.

2.       Decide ahead of time what time you want to go to bed, based on what time you need to get up.

3.       Set a timer or alarm for 30 minutes BEFORE that time!

4.       When that timer goes off, wrap up anything left undone like homework, phone calls, txt’ing, computer time, cleaning, getting ready for tomorrow, TV shows.

5.       Turn the TV off!  TV interrupts your sleep even if you don’t realize it.

6.       Have a dark, quiet room.  If you are nervous or used to noise and light, try a very dim nightlight (not your TV, that’s too bright) and a box fan or soft, calm music with no words.

7.       Enjoy your sleep!

Even in the summer, it’s a good idea to get this much sleep at night. 3am to 11am doesn’t work nearly as well because your body recognizes the daylight and doesn’t sleep as soundly.

Try it! Add a good night’s sleep to healthy food and good activity, and see how your body responds.

Martha Nelson, PA-c is a physician’s assistant with the Healthy Lifestyles Program at Duke University. The program focuses on empowering kids and families with the skills and knowledge needed to live a life of healthy eating and active lifestyles.

By Hansa Bhargava, MD

I met a girl, Julia, in my office the other day. She’s 15 and came in because she’d been feeling really tired. Her mom said she had a hard time getting up for school and couldn’t concentrate in her classes. She got an “F” on her last math test and she was worried about her grade point average. ”I am going to be a junior next year and I have SATs,” she told me.

When we started talking about a typical day for her, the real problem started becoming a bit clearer.

Julia gets out of bed about 10 minutes before she has to leave for school. She throws on her clothes and runs to catch the bus. Forget breakfast. She doesn’t even have time to drink a glass of water before she goes. She barely drags herself into her first class. By her second class, she’s so hungry that she can’t pay attention to the teacher because of the noises her stomach is making.

By lunch hour, she is ravenous and runs to the school cafeteria. Usually, she told me, she downs a bag of chips and a diet coke before she even gets to the cashier to pay for them. In the afternoon, she’s pretty sleepy and usually takes a nap when she gets home. Then she doesn’t go to sleep till 1am.

Have you ever done this? Not eaten breakfast and then totally inhaled tons of food – only to feel really sleepy in the afternoon?

Not eating breakfast and not sleeping enough can have this ‘domino effect’ on your life. You didn’t get enough sleep, so you didn’t have time for breakfast. Then you are so hungry that you want to eat your desk, so you overload at lunch. The big lunch makes you sleepy so you need a nap. Then you text until 1 am and the whole cycle starts again. The sad part is that it affects every part of your day AND your ability to pay attention in class. When Julia and I started talking about this, she realized it was a vicious cycle that she had to break. She started eating breakfast and going to bed by 10pm, and she’s now feeling much better and more energetic.

Breakfast really IS the most important meal of the day. And getting enough sleep will make you more energetic, and help you concentrate more at school. These small changes can have a big impact!

“Aww, man, water is boring. I can’t live without my sodas… or lemonade… or sweet tea… or fruit punch…”

Yes, you can! It is important to drink more water and to limit your amounts of sweetened beverages.  Drinking appropriate amounts of water helps to keep your body hydrated.  Drinking a glass of water before and after you have a meal can also assist with feeling full after eating appropriate serving sizes of a healthy meal.  When you drink your calories, not only are you getting extra calories that make it harder to control your weight, but you are also missing out on the nutritional value that should be included in those calories.   Remember that it takes about 3500 unused calories to give your body a new pound of weight.  Two regular cans of soda per day gives you about 240-280 empty calories and can easily contribute to adding a new pound almost every two weeks.

There are lots of easy and/or fun ways to drink more water:

• For additional taste, consider adding a couple of slices of lemon, lime, orange, pineapple or even cucumber to a glass of ice cold water to give it flavor.
• Consider buying flavored carbonated waters as an alternative to soda.  They do have flavor and they still give you the fizz, but without the calories.
• There are various products that can be added to water to flavor it.  These are ok to use occasionally in place of things like sweet tea or regular Kool-aid. But this doesn’t change the importance of learning to enjoy plain ol’ H2O.

William Lawrence, MD is a pediatrician with the Healthy Lifestyles Program at Duke University. The program focuses on empowering kids and families with the skills and knowledge needed to live a life of healthy eating and active lifestyles.

by Jenna Hanington

Healthy = Skinny

Right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, this black and white view of weight is really common. As we grow up, we’re constantly exposed to images of “perfect bodies”—whether it’s the models in magazines, actors on television or professional athletes competing at the highest levels. How can we live up to those kinds of standards?

Here’s the honest answer: we don’t have to live up to those standards. No one does. The pressure to be really skinny or really in shape may sometimes be overwhelming, but the real goal should be to stay healthy.

Being healthy doesn’t mean being skinny. There’s more to it than that. It’s a mixture of exercise and eating well—but also confidence and happiness. To help with the second two parts, here’s something fun that really helped my friend and I back in high school. Next time you’re looking at a magazine and you see all the “perfect-looking” people on every page, try pointing out all of their flaws. You’d be surprised.

Jenna Hanington is a student at Georgia Tech studying Communications and Literature. She loves being physically active and spending time outdoors.

When many people think about doing exercise they think, “I don’t like to exercise”, “ It’s too hard”, “I‘m not in good shape”, or “ I don’t have time to exercise”.  So what if we changed that word to activity and asked what do you do to be active?  I can think of a lot of things that I like to do that don’t involve running around a track or lifting weights at the gym.  Things like gardening, taking a walk/hike/bike ride with my family, ice skating, dancing, or shopping at the mall (much better than running around a track!).  There are also other things that may not be as fun but keep us moving as well such as housework, yard work, or grocery shopping.

So, how much “activity” do you need? There are a couple of recommendations from the experts. The first one is that you should be doing 60 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity, 7 days per week.  What does this mean?  It means finding something you like to do and do it every day at a level that increases your heart rate, makes you breathe a little faster, and may cause you to break a sweat.  When doing it, you may be thinking to yourself “this is getting a little hard, but I can keep going”.  The good thing is that it does not have to all be at one time. You can break up an activity, or pick 2 or 3 activities to do a day for shorter periods of time so your grand total equals 60 minutes.  The other recommendation is to be more active throughout your day and spend more time on your feet than on your bottom – the goal is to take 10,000 steps per day.  You may not have a pedometer that counts your steps, but you can think about your day and ask how many hours was I sitting today vs how much was I on my feet moving?  If your answer for the first is larger, than you may need to think of how to get your body moving more during the day. Some ideas for this may be to set a timer for 30 minutes of computer, TV, texting time and when it goes off, take a 5-10 minute move-it break to walk around the house/yard, go up and down stairs, do some jumping jacks or jump rope, or a few chores around the house.  You can also do these things during commercial breaks.  A way to get more steps in is parking farther away from the store when you go shopping, taking stairs instead of elevators, or walking to a nearby store/park instead of driving.

Not meeting these recommendations? You can work up to it – start to slowly increase your daily activity by adding 10-15 minutes a day to prevent being sore or causing an injury.  Slowly increase your minutes and/or moderate intensity activity over the course of a month or two so that it becomes part of your daily routine.

So what’s the pay-off? Getting the recommended amount of activity can:

1. Boost your immune system and keep your sick days to a minimum.
2. Improve your energy and alertness levels, as well as your overall mood (chemicals released from the brain during aerobic activity can help lift your mood and make you feel good!)
3. Increase your muscle mass throughout your body.  Muscles burn more calories than fat, which can help you to maintain a healthy weight
4. Decrease your risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular, kidney, and liver disease.
5. Help improve your sleep.

So, get active and have fun! Aim for 60 minutes of activity every day for a healthier body, heart, and mind.

Andrea Hartzell, PT is a pediatric physical therapist with the Healthy Lifestyles Program at Duke University. The program focuses on empowering kids and families with the skills and knowledge needed to live a life of healthy eating and active lifestyles.

By Jenna Hanington
High school doesn’t have to be scary. Even though it can bring a world of insecurity and drama, there is one thing that is important to remember: you are always in control. At one point or another, everyone will feel the pressure to fit in and be accepted. So much growth happens within those four years, and much of it will determine the kind of person that you will be. Don’t lose sight of your goals, and most importantly, never lose sight of yourself.

That advice may sound like a cliché, but it’s the best advice that I’ve ever received. High school seemed like a jungle. Everyone wanted to be the most popular kid in school, the freshmen were small, the seniors were huge, and the teachers had it in for the students. I was a year younger than almost everyone else when I started my freshman year, and no one ever let me forget it. Starting out, I had a strong group of about four or five friends who I could depend on for anything. It was amazing how quickly things started to change.

Before I knew it, three of the friends in my group had started hanging out with the popular crowd, a group that I secretly longed to be a part of. After about a year of watching my friends make choices that I would never have made, I started to reevaluate my opinions of them. I started to make new friends and tried to avoid getting caught up in being part of a group. I realized that I was much happier getting along with everybody. I avoided a lot of trouble, and learned what I really valued. Most importantly, I felt proud for staying true to myself. I made high school into the experience that I wanted it to be, and I learned that although there will be many people that will come and go in your life, the person that will always stay with you is yourself.

Jenna Hanington is a student at Georgia Tech studying Communications and Literature. She loves being physically active and spending time outdoors.

By Jenny Favret, RD

It’s too bad when people get the idea that “healthy” food is somehow tasteless, like steamed, unseasoned veggies with a dried-out grilled chicken breast. How boring is that?!

Healthy food can and SHOULD be delicious.  Don’t be afraid to sauté those veggies in a little olive oil, garlic and a pinch of sea salt.  Add in some diced leftover chicken for a delicious stir fry.

Still not convinced?  Try to keep an open mind when it comes to tying new foods.  Some people have to taste a new food twenty times or more before learning to accept and eventually ENJOY it.  In the meantime start small:

• Maybe try adding some baby spinach leaves to your pizza.
• How do oven-baked sweet potato fries with dinner sound?
• What about a dessert of frozen grapes tonight?
• Consider a side of crunchy carrots and cucumbers with your sandwich tomorrow.
• What about a yummy protein-packed breakfast parfait tomorrow morning, made with layers of sliced fruit, nuts, and Greek yogurt in a tall glass?

Take the opportunity to try all different types of healthy foods each time you get the chance to do so.  Be sure to recommend your favorite healthy meal and snack ideas to your friends. And always keep in mind though that eating healthy doesn’t mean giving up your favorite foods.  Bon appétit!

It can be really hard to start new habits, and it’s also hard to change the habits you already have. And seriously, some habits are just easier to change than others. But one thing is for certain; once you’re used to your new habit, it’s not as hard to keep it going. See if any of these suggestions might help you start some new habits, and then stick to them:

1. Pick just one or two things to work on at a time, like maybe adding just one more serving of vegetables/day or an extra 30 minutes of sleep five nights a week.
    
2. Tell someone you trust what you’re doing, and ask them to support you in your efforts, but not nag you!
    
3. Give yourself small rewards in the beginning when you do the new things for two days, then for three days, then four… Rewards could be things like using your favorite smelling soap in the shower, playing a card game, doing your hair in a different style, writing a rap or poem, sketching, coloring or painting while listening to music.