Does your teen eat enough protein?

The world of teenage psychology and behaviour is a largely inscrutable one. “Teen” life is an impenetrable mosaic of adulation of obscure Canadians, adoption of largely meaningless catch-phrases and fashion that defies both gravity and comfort. All of this teen-ness is driven by a hyper-drive rocket fuel mix of swirling hormones and burgeoning consciousness. How does society best serve and create space for teen-beings to navigate the foment that is adolescence? Certainly not with lectures so a new study, showing that a simple dietary strategy might have far reaching effects on the teen body and mind, is great news.

The study involved females and males between 13 and 19 years of age who were asked to have a high-protein snack in the early afternoon. The snack used in this study was a pudding that was chocolate-peanut-caramel flavoured and formulated with soy protein so that it contained 26 grams of protein, six grams of fat and 27 grams of carbohydrate. Before we even go on with the details of the study, it needs to be said that a snack like this is not the ideal way to get your protein. For a start, there is a lot of carbohydrate in that pudding and soy protein is often from genetically modified sources. If you want to boost your protein intake, then a handful of nuts or even an egg are surely better options.

The point of this study, though, was to see if a protein snack, rather than the high-sugar snacks that are so readily available, would change food choices as well as how it may affect cognitive performance and mood.

The results showed that, when the teens had a high-protein afternoon snack, they consumed less fat throughout the day but more protein. In general, the teens ate less unhealthy snacks when they had the high-protein snack. The other benefit was that the high protein led to improved mood and better cognitive performance.

So for teens, and other research suggests the same for adults, replacing those ubiquitous sugary snacks when the afternoon lull comes with a handful of nuts could have many benefits. Maybe we have misspelled the food component and we should really be spelling it “pro-teen”?