In addition to the usual changes in the body's chemical and hormonal compositions, a teenager also need to cope with the pressures in the family, in the school and in their social group. Most kids find the last one the hardest to deal with.
Social groups, kids with almost the same age range, can be really cruel if they want to. Stories of bullying and ostracism are not untrue. These things really happen in every middle school and high school in the country. There are people who are popular and there are those who are popularly bullied and made fun of.
In most social groups, the need to be part of the select group of popular kids or just be accepted by the majority is one of the major achievements in these periods of their lives. Unfortunately, much of the acceptance and the ostracism involve the looks.
This is perhaps the reason why people, especially the young are so much into their looks. Ultimately, they don't really want to have slim bodies. They don't really want to diet. They just want to be accepted and they see dieting as their ticket inside the select social group that they are craving to belong to.
This is also the reason why more and more kids are developing eating disorders and a lot of them are undergoing surgeries. Most are into different kinds of diet programs that guarantee them slimness in less than a month. Although these procedures do work, when taken to the extreme, these can be mighty dangerous. In the long run, not only will they be destroying their bodies and their health but also their lives.
The roles of parents are therefore important in this instance. They are the ones who need to show their teenagers the right way, to guide them so that they will make the right choices. One way to do this is to show your understanding and your support. Most parents often oppose the choices of their kids.
Because of this, their kids no longer confide or tell them what they are thinking about or what is going on in their lives. You may not like what your teeners to do the things that they do; but at least by knowing, you are able to put limits on their behavior. There is a lot that "being aware" can do.
If you cannot really stop them and they are really decided; then support them with their decision. Accompany them in shopping for a surgical doctor. Tell them the pros and the cons. Maybe, you can manage to dissuade them.
Children can be logical and rational when they want to. They just need the right kind of information fed to them. Another way to help them is to make sure that they are aware of the choices that they are making. Losing weight fast can be a dangerous thing. Let them read literature on the dangers of losing weight fast. Tell them the dangers of surgeries and going under the knife. Let them see picture of people who have gone under the knife and have their surgeries backfire.
Unique ways may appeal to more teenagers as they not only want to look at losing weight as something that they have to do instead of being something that they really want to do. Once they enjoy doing it, they have an increased likelihood of keeping it up and become more successful in trying to lose weight.
But how can you make losing weight more fun? Well, exciting activities that appeal to the teenager will likely do it. There is a story of a certain teenage girl who lost weight simply by playing a video game. Now, what can be more exciting and fun than that? Losing weight while playing a video game? This is some story that is worth listening to.
This typical teenage girl makes use of her time at the arcade to lose weight. She started playing a popular video game called "Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)" at the age of 17. At that time, she was a senior in high school and weighed about 235 lbs, pretty overweight for a teenage girl. But after four and a half years of playing the said video game, she now weigh about 140 lbs.
She couldn't even imagine just how much a video game would come to affect her health and weight concerns with positive results. The said video game even helped her grow to be a better and more self-confident teen. Before discovering the video game, she was a rather inactive person not used to go about doing such activities.
Although she was active as a member in different bands, orchestras, drama, and had already played video games, she didn't regularly get out for exercise. She became really unhappy when she realized that she was at an unhealthy weight. Just as what happens with most obese people, she started losing hope that she will ever be a normal person again when faced with the fact that she had so much weight to lose. The Internet became a form of escapism so that she didn't have to face people in person because of her overweight condition.
In college, she became increasingly unhappy being in a new environment and her weight continued to yo-yo, usually staying at around 235 lbs. Sometime around October of 2002, a fun new game version of a game called DDR USA was released that contained a ton of new songs to dance to. She tried the game out and soon became addicted to the video game with a high activity rate. Not long after, she began frequenting the video arcade almost everyday playing the video game for hours and hours.
At one point, she came to discover a website which had a Bulletin Board where people would meet online and talk about DDR and music games and she quickly became friends with the regulars. She was able to get to know friends who were able to motivate her to play more frequently and for hours at a time. It was during around this time she began losing most of her weight.
In her first six months of playing, she was able to lose 45 lbs with no change in her diet whatsoever. Once she discovered that she can find herself at a more comfortable weight again, she decided to make healthy changes in her life such as following a more healthy diet. She became more conscious of what she ate and as a result, lost an additional 20 lbs.
Playing the game regularly and coupled with a healthy diet has allowed her to maintain a healthier weight than she ever thought possible. All because she was able to enjoy losing weight by playing a video game that changed her life.