The cigarettes, crisps and creme egg diet

Do you know what YOUR teenager’s eating?

A recent study revealed that teenage girls are starving their bodies of essential nutrients and smoking in an effort to stay thin like their celebrity role models.

The Daily Mail tracked one teenagers diet and the results are mind blowing to say the least!

DAY ONE

MORNING: I woke up really late for college, as usual, so I skipped breakfast. My mum leaves for work before I’m awake, but she always puts out a bowl of cereal and some fruit for me – but I just threw it in the bin and then covered the evidence with coffee granules.

I know it’s a waste and she’d kill me if she found out. I just had a glass of water instead.

AFTERNOON: My Dad gives me £50 at the start of the week and that’s meant to cover my lunches and my train fare to college.

But I always buy about two packets of cigarettes a week which cost £12, so there’s not much left for healthy food.

I read that models such as Kate Moss smoke to suppress their appetite and thought I would try it, and it does really work. All the girls at college smoke – I think I’d stand out if I didn’t.

I’m not worried about the health effects because I’ll give up in a couple of years. I always carry perfume and mints so my parents can’t smell smoke on my clothes or breath. Today I had three cigs instead of lunch.

EVENING: By 5pm I was starving and I ate a bar of Galaxy, a full bag of prawn crackers and a current bun.

In the evening, I told my mum I was going to a friend’s house to study, but went to the pub with my boyfriend. I had a glass of water with lime in it and a glass of cola.

I didn’t order alcohol in case one of my parents’ friends saw me – I hate living in a village sometimes.

In the pub, I also ordered taramasalata with pitta bread, but it wasn’t really enough because when I got home I had half a tube of Pringles and some sour cream dip. I also smoked two cigarettes out of my bedroom window

Read the rest here

When you read this, it is quite shocking and, from my experience, cigarettes and junk food can make up the diets of teenage girls. However, younger children do appear to be getting the health message and I think this will soon be a thing of the past.

When you read this, what becomes clear is that, when they have a family meal, this child does eat correctly, which is very encouraging. And while you cannot dictate what your child eats outside the house, you certainly can inside the house. If you don’t want your child to eat junk food, don’t buy any and make a rule that if they want it then they have to buy it themselves. Believe me, it will soon stop.

While this does not obviously tackle all the problems of body image and smoking, it would ensure that at least they were eating healthier. Read the diet and make your own conclusion, but my two pieces of advice would be to eat a family meal each day and don’t buy junk food.

When is comes to body image and cigarettes, I believe that nothing beats having a conversation about this with your children. And if you are not sure where to start, you can always buy a pack of our teen conversation cards.