A Day in the Life of a 21st Century Teenage Girl
By: Jadah Pitts
It’s a common stereotype in today’s society that all teenagers are invested within their phone and that they depend on their cellular devices; and admittedly, it is somewhat true. Many teens have an addiction to their phones, and I used to be one of them. I was constantly glued to my phone, lounging on couches and watching pointless reality tv, which in itself is toxic now that I think about it. To put it bluntly, I was not healthy whatsoever. It is well known that you should at least try to get 30 minutes to an hour of exercise everyday, yet I wasn’t even getting 10 minutes. It was hard for me to walk up large flights of stairs and it was difficult for me to walk around the mall. I had always known that I needed to change the way I did things, yet I never did because I was too lazy. I never liked a challenge and I never lived up to my full potential.
Health is so extremely important when it comes to how you live. I know from experience. When it comes to genes within your family they can be very crucial. Somethings get passed on from generation to generation and others don’t. Many of these things that are passed down can be affected by how your health currently is. Dementia is a memory loss disease and it runs through my mother’s side of the family, which automatically puts me a risk to develop the disease. My grandmother currently has the terrible disease and I am praying to God that my mother does not develop dementia. When I found out that I was liable to develop dementia, it clicked a switch inside me. With me being terribly unhealthy, I was scared. I decided enough was enough and I changed my entire life around.
I took baby steps, I started only watching an hour of television, and I put my phone down. Just from that small little change my life started to become more clear. I could walk up the stairs without feeling out of breath and I felt healthier. I put down bad foods and only ate veggies and fruits for a while. When you top that off with the constant exercise, I was my best self. I felt more inspired and in love with myself. The feeling is amazing. Obesity is taking over this world, rapidly.
It’s harder to lose the weight than to gain it. You control your body, don’t let it control you. There is always hope in any situation, if you want to lose weight you can do it. It may be hard but there is always a chance.
It seems that teenagers would struggle with this more so than adults, due to the school and part time jobs, where would they find time to be in a gym, without it being incredibly early or pitch dark outside. Health should always be a priority within your life and nothing should stop you from doing it. There are only so many excuses that you can make to get out of it. Your body tells you what it needs, you just need to listen to it.