Habits are hard to break; some can last for a lifetime if we are not careful. Worse is that according to some studies, habits formed by a teen as young as 16 may continue with us into adulthood and worsen with age. Because of this, teen years through early adult-hood are a crucial time for forming healthy lifestyle patterns, effecting items such as eating habits, tobacco use, physical activity and sleep patterns.
One crucial item with the studies finding is discovering that correlations exist between our choices. One example noted was a direct correlation between physical activity and the overall consumption of tobacco and alcohol, the more active a teen was, the less they consumed alcohol and tobacco products. This evidence supports the theory that our choices should not be minimized, since they are linked to one another and one bad choice can spiral into other unhealthier habits.
Another difficulty facing teenagers and their choice of habits is the long-term health issues. A simple sedentary lifestyle choice can affect a teen’s cardiometabolic health, increasing the chances of diabetes and heart disease. Unfortunately, the consequences may not manifest until years later when the habit is fully ingrained and is difficult to overcome. Promoting an active lifestyle early on in a teen’s life can have a strong impact later on.
Daily life choices, and the difficulty with them, surprisingly have a gender preference according to research. Young women are prone to becoming more sedentary, increased risk of tobacco use, and poor sleep patterns while young men are susceptible to alcohol abuse, poor eating habits, and drug use. This creates minor difficulties with educating teens about lifestyle choices since there is not a shared subject between sexes, although programs certainly can be effective in terms of prevention.
Perhaps the biggest challenge though is getting a teen to make healthy choices. Between topics such as tobacco, alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases, and drugs there is enough information to make an informed decision. As a result, making an unhealthy choice is not due to a lack of information on anyone’s part. More important though is regardless of how we get teens to choose healthier lifestyles, the earlier we encounter the task the better.
