The Importance of Fitness in Your Teens

When you're in your teens and life seems an incredibly long thing spread out before you that will go on forever, worrying about your health and fitness levels often couldn't be further from your mind. But this could be a big mistake!

That's because the way you set yourself up in your teens can have an effect on the way your health will be throughout your life. And more importantly, it can affect how it will be in later life when good health is more important than ever.

When Energy is Abundant

It's a tough thing to get your head around when you have abundant energy and it seems that no matter how much you abuse your body, you feel fine the next day. But keeping yourself fit in your teens is very much an important issue that is often ignored in favor of the computer games console or the TV.

The hardest part is seeing why you need to get out in the fresh air and do a load of very uncool stuff every day. Things like running, playing football, swimming etc seem like way too much hassle when everyone else is slumming it in front of a LCD of some description.

Keeping Fit for Teens

While the whole need to keep fit is important in later life, it is also equally important for teens because a good start in life with regards to fitness is essential if that is how you mean to go on. So many teens prefer to sit indoors watching TV or playing computer games that their fitness is neglected.

The worst part is they can't see how that is setting them up for problems down the road. So this article is not so much a "how to keep fit" primer, but more a "why you need to keep fit" message.

Childhood's End

In your formative years once you hit puberty and hormones are going crazy, the last thing you want to be told is that you should get out of the house more and play the kind of games that you did when you were just a kid. Because you're not a kid any more!

Well, that makes sense sure enough. But rather than going out to play, it should be taken more as going out to keep yourself fit.

Why should you bother to go out and keep fit, when you body is going through a growing spurt and probably you feel just fine? Well, you might feel just fine right now and you probably will feel fine for several years of sitting around and not exercising, but it will catch up with you in one way or another.

No Exercise Means More Flab

One thing that is almost certain to happen if you don't get any exercise when you are a teenager is that you will gain weight and start to look puffy, flabby or even downright fat. This is the time when you should be making an effort to be getting together with members of the opposite sex (despite any protestations from your parents) and if you want to attract good looking people, you are going to have to look good yourself.

Now that doesn't mean you need to look like a film star or a catwalk model, but it does mean you need to look as normal as a teen should look. That means being at your correct weight (not too thin and not too fat), being averagely energetic and have some life in you.

To be there, getting some good fitness tips for teens is a great idea. When you look good and feel fit, do you know your confidence is much higher?

Gaining Confidence Looking Good

When you have more self esteem and self confidence, you are better able to go speak to that girl or that guy you've been wanting to get to know. That's because you'll have this inner knowledge that you are far less likely to get a rejection than you would if you were overweight, chubby and unfit.

It's just a natural selection process that nature has set up for all members of the animal kingdom of which we are supposed to be top of. So make sure you keep fit and healthy by getting as much exercise outdoors as you can and by eating as good a diet as you can.

That way you will reap far more benefits than you could ever get from sitting around in front of the TV or games console.

Looking Back at past Mistakes

The thing is this; how many people who get into middle age take a look back at their misspent youth? How many rue their foolish decisions when they actively defied anyone who tried to tell them to do anything they though was stupid at the time?

When you are in your 40s and 50s and are experiencing ill-health and feeling 10 years older than your biological years, the realization can be quite unforgiving. That's when you finally realize that all that lack of mindfulness of health and fitness in those formative tears when you were becoming a young adult is at least in part responsible for the way you are now.

So if you ever wanted to know why it's important for teens to keep fit, this should hopefully have put some good ideas your way. Because the way you conduct your health and fitness in the early days of your adult life will reflect on the kind of health you should expect to enjoy in the later years.