When is the mind of a teenager like a 70 year
old?
A couple hours after eating a donut…
“You have this burst of energy, and then you crash,”
says Rachel Brandeis, a Dietician and spokeswoman for the
American Dietetic Association.
In fact, researchers in Great Britain tested 30 teens for
reaction time and memory before eating a sugary breakfast,
and then two hours later.
In the later test, their performance had dropped in half…
to about the level of a typical 70-year-old.
“That’s what happens when you take in too much
simple sugars, you get these blood sugar spikes and then you
crash,” says Brandeis.
Any ‘simple carbohydrate’… food high in
sugar…will have that effect. 17-year-old Susan Little
says she used to begin the day with a candy bar and a soft
drink…
“Sugary foods just don’t sit well, so you end
up feeling bad. You feel good for a little bit, and then it
hits,” she says.
That’s why experts recommend teens get their energy
from complex carbohydrates…
“I think most people don’t distinguish between
simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates,” says
Brandeis, “Potatoes, whole grain cereals, rice, bread,
things like that are complex carbohydrates. They’re
not really sweets.”
She says complex carbs deliver energy more slowly and steadily…
and they also make you feel full longer, so you eat less.
If children are taught these differences, experts say, and
parents remind them… many teenagers will begin to make
different choices.
“I wanted to do more things and I realized that the
eating habits I had going that I couldn’t do as well…
so you end up changing what you want to eat,” says Little.
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