Study Says Good Lifestyle Habits Should be Taught Even Before 13 Years of Age

Parents should enforce good lifestyle habits even before children turn 13, researchers at University of the Basque Country have said.

Drinking, eating junk food and all other unhealthy life habits that are already being detected in early adolescence and that are especially predominant amongst women and young people between the ages of 19 and 26.

Childhood Obesity - Criteria - Causes - Complications, Treatment
Childhood obesity is one of the most serious health challenges in the developing countries and needs to be understood and tackled effectively.

Marta Arrue and colleagues studied 2,018 young people from the CAV-EAE. She collated and analysed habits of life according to sex and age (adolescents from 13 to 17; young persons from 18 to 26).

According to the thesis, the least healthy habits turned out to be eating ones, followed by ingestion of alcohol, sedentarism, risks involving sexual relations, the consumption of tobacco and drugs and, finally, low quality or insufficient sleep.

Arrue concluded that special attention has to be paid to adolescents of 16 years; the age in which either healthy activities are opted for or risk behaviour patterns arise.

Children Food Allergies – Peanut Allergy – Egg Allergy - Milk Allergy
If you are allergic to certain food items-Watch out for what you eat

She also said that risk factors tend to be associated in a simultaneous manner, although healthy behaviour also.

Apart from the psychological factor, she suggests that cultural and economic factors should be considered, as well as legal.

Kidney Stones in children - Can Children Get Kidney Stones?
Increase in salt concentration in the urine results in precipitation of crystals and these lead to formation of kidney stones. Drinking a lot of water can prevent kidney stones.

The results show that adolescents and young people with healthy life habits have higher self-esteem, better psychological wellbeing, greater satisfaction with their bodies and fewer psychopathological indicators.

Thus, the fight against bad lifestyle habits requires a multifactorial and pluridisciplinary approach, and behoves us to detect the problem as early as possible.

The thesis is titled 'Lifestyle habits and psychological factors in adolescence and youth in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (CAV-EAE)'.

Source-ANI