Mineral requirements

During adolescence, there is a high growth rate and important maturational phenomena that affect body size, shape and composition; processes in which nutrition plays a determining role. To achieve the success of these processes, situations that increase nutritional risks must be avoided.

Among the causes that can complicate the development of adolescents are drug use, intense physical activities, pregnancy and breastfeeding, among others.

Adolescent drug use

Drug use in adolescence puts their development, health and life at risk. The earlier boys and girls start using drugs, the greater the risk that they will become addicted to the substances and continue to abuse them throughout adolescence and later in life. The drugs most commonly abused by adolescents are tobacco and alcohol.

Negative consequences of alcohol and tobacco use in adolescence

Effects of alcohol consumption in adolescence:

• Nutritionally, alcohol hinders the absorption of vitamins: B9 -folic acid-, B12, B1, A and C; it also favors the elimination through urine of minerals: zinc, magnesium and calcium; and causes serious disorders to the organs of the digestive system.
• It impairs brain development, causing damage to memory, attention concentration and decision-making capacity.
• It favors the occurrence of risky behaviors: reckless driving, getting involved in violent fights or having unprotected sex.
• It causes behavioral disorders: anxiety, depression, hyperactivity, etc.

Effects of tobacco consumption in adolescence:

• Nutritionally, tobacco increases the demand for nutrients such as vitamin C, provitamin A -carotenes-, vitamin E and vitamin B9 -folic acid-.
• Cigarette smoke causes diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis, heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

Teenage pregnancy

Adolescents facing pregnancy require greater nutritional intake than adult women, as they need to meet the demands of their own development and those of the fetus. This situation causes competition for nutrients from both organisms, increasing the risk of malnutrition in both mother and child.

The problem can be aggravated if the mother-to-be restricts her caloric intake to avoid the usual weight gain that occurs during pregnancy.

Another factor that increases the risks of pregnancy at this stage is that most pregnancies occur suddenly, without adequate preparation of the mother and family, which represents an additional risk, since pregnancy requires certain nutritional conditions, which must be ensured months before conception, such as the weight of the pregnant woman, the volume and composition of her blood, as well as the intake of vitamins and minerals essential to prevent disorders in the child, such as neural tube defects.

Adolescent pregnancies generally cause premature births, low birth weight babies and neonatal mortality; therefore, family prevention strategies are very useful, in order to ensure that pregnancies occur after the age of 20.

Breastfeeding in adolescence

Breast milk should guarantee adequate nutrition for the baby, as a continuation of intrauterine nutrition, constituting the best food for the first six months of the baby's life.

For this reason, specialists recommend extreme nutritional care for pregnant women under 20 years of age in order to guarantee the correct nutrition of the baby through breastfeeding, at least until after six months of life of the child.

Milk production depends on the individual metabolism, age, previous weight and nutritional status of the mother. To achieve good nutritional status during lactation, the adolescent has to increase nutrient intakes at a higher rate than an adult mother.

At each postnatal visit, both the adolescent mother and child should be examined, and advice on healthy eating should be provided. Adolescents are usually advised at these visits to take macro and micronutrient supplements, especially iron and calcium, in order to prevent anemia and reduced bone density in the young woman.

Habitual practice of intense physical exercise in adolescence

The physical activities that most adolescents habitually perform in or out of school do not imply additional nutritional requirements; on the contrary, they contribute to the correct development of the rapid growth process that t