How many high school students rely on fast food, animal products, and processed foods to fill their diet? It is commonly brought up that teenagers always struggle with sleeping schedules, focusing in class, staying motivated, exercise, and nutrition. What if, from my own personal experience, I told every high school student that the key to solving all those problems, along with curing medical conditions and depression was living mostly on raw fruits and vegetables? They would roll their eyes, that’s what.
As a highschool student being around a lot of teenagers, I’ve noticed that whenever someone my age is told to eat healthier, the first thought that comes to mind is eating an entire floret of broccoli and washing it down with a handful of kale and water. This doesn’t have to be the case. The teenager idea of eating healthy, and what is generally thought of when someone says vegetables, is most likely why it is so hard for youth to consider health as a necessary permanent basis for how they eat. This is also why teens go on temporary eating restrictions, or diets, and then go back to old habits like they didn’t solve anything at all.
I created a poll and asked 15 students how much of their diet they considered unhealthy, and what their reason for eating unhealthy was. Two of them said that they ate about 75% healthy, one student said half and half, but every one of the other students said that they mostly ate unhealthy food. They also said that their reason for this was because they found it more convenient, cheaper, and overall easier to do, or they just didn’t think about it.
Eating healthy doesn’t have to be hard or temporary. What is needed to maintain a long-term, energetic and feel-good lifestyle is finding out what you like and focusing on what you can eat instead of what you can’t. There are thousands of different species of edible plants on this planet, and our country mostly only eats about 100. Did you know there is even a fruit that tastes like meat? It is called jackfruit and can be seasoned in any way you like to perform as a substitute so it is easier to lower animal product intake.
You can also start out with homemade fruit smoothies (with water, not milk), and start to add vegetables when your tastes adapt to them. Keep in mind that your taste WILL change the healthier you eat; that is, if you decide to try and start. You won’t be craving pizza and soda for the rest of your life. Take it from me, I have been vegan for two years and I do not miss a thing. I even look forward to having an apple or pear every day, and cookies are now too sweet for me.
I am not suggesting that teens should just start eating healthy and quit their habitual eating cold turkey. Doing that will plummet the chances of success and turn them back to how they used to be. Starting to eat healthier requires easing into the new lifestyle. This is because it takes time for the body to adapt to healthier foods. It is still going to be hard, but the results are worth it. Many have cured themselves from all kinds of conditions by just how they ate. Numerous documentaries about transformations from changing a person’s diet are out there and can be easily found on youtube, Prime, and many other platforms. The saying is true. ‘You are what you eat.’ If you eat well, you’ll feel well. If you eat bad, you’ll feel bad.
If you are interested in eating healthier, there is a recipe book on how to make amazing food substitutes out of raw foods called Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 people by Jennifer Cornbleet that I definitely recommend. Teenagers often think that health isn’t a priority because their metabolisms aren’t affected by it yet, but in reality, they actually are. A major reason for teenage health issues is unhealthy diet. I used to be extremely depressed before eating and exercising the way that I do now. If anything is to be taken from this article, it is to try to better life through diet and exercise at least more than once.