If your teen daughter's physician has recommended that she lose weight, there are some safe ways to go about reaching that goal. Crash dieting and severe restriction of calories are not effective or safe ways to lose weight long term, but eating certain foods and restricting soda, sweets and fast food is one way to promote healthy weight loss. Provide healthful foods to your teen daughter in order to reduce her caloric intake so she can shed unwanted pounds.
Leafy Green Salads
Leafy green salads are low in calories and fat and can be customized with your teen daughter's favorite salad toppings. Gordon M. Wardlaw notes in his book, "Contemporary Nutrition: Issues and Insights," that many teen girls are deficient in iron and folic acid, which leafy greens can provide. Start your teen's salad with spinach and romaine lettuce and encourage her to add healthy toppings, such as tomatoes, cucumber, onion and bell pepper. Lean meat and cheese can make her salad a nutritious and low-calorie meal that will encourage healthy weight loss.
Colorful Fruits
A diet that includes several servings of fruit will supply your teen daughter with several different vitamins and minerals. Wardlaw reports that the diets of many teen girls lack sufficient amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E, which are abundant in colorful fruits. Keep several types of fruit in your home so your teen daughter can add three or four servings to her daily diet. Fruit is low in calories and will give your daughter several hours of energy so she can burn calories that translate to weight loss. Apples, bananas and grapes are easy for your teen to take with her to school and extracurricular activities.
Grilled Chicken
Protein is an essential nutrient for your growing teen daughter, and grilled chicken is a low-fat and low calorie way to ensure that she gets enough. KidsHealth recommends a grilled chicken sandwich as one food that many teens enjoy and are willing to eat. Choose lean white meat chicken to keep saturated fat and calories low and serve it on a whole wheat bun for added fiber and B vitamins. Lettuce and tomato will add additional nutrition. A grilled chicken breast served with steamed vegetables is another low calorie way to include chicken in your teen's weight loss plan.
Skim Milk
Teen girls are building critical bone mass and calcium is one of the most crucial nutrients to encourage healthy bone formation. Skim milk, rather than 2 percent or whole milk, is a more effective diet food for teens because it contains no fat and only about 90 calories per serving. Offering your teen girl several servings of skim milk each day will encourage sufficient calcium levels and will only add minimal calories to her diet so she is still able to lose weight.
References
- "Contemporary Nutrition: Issues and Insights"; Gordon M. Wardlaw; 2003
- KidsHealth: Overweight and Obesity
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