That's Fit

Quick -- What vegetable is pictured here?

If you answered celery, you're right. Too easy? You might think so, but according to studies out of the UK, a third (33%) of adolescents (11 to 13-year-olds) can't identify celery. Think that's frightening? Here are some other stats from Diet Blog:

• Over 20% of tweens didn't know what a potato looks like
• 5.5% can't identify a carrot
• 33% of boys couldn't name a cucumber but 90% of girls could

This might not seem like a big deal, but I'm guessing that nearly all of them can identify a French fry or a bag of chips.

What do you think? Does your tween know his or her fruits and veggies?

"Hi. My name is Maggie and I have insomnia." There's got to be a support group for insomniacs somewhere, right? My guess is they meet at 3 a.m.

I just recently had a bad bout of insomnia where I was only getting an hour or two of sleep a night. My sleep troubles tend to come in fits and starts, however, so the bad stretch has ended and I'm back to sleeping more normally. I do notice that when I'm sleep deprived, my son's behavior changes. I'm less energetic and perhaps a bit shorter-tempered and he starts to react to that. According to a recent study, adolescents can be greatly affected by a parent's insomnia. Not only are the adolescents more prone to insomnia themselves, they're more likely to feel depressed and suicidal.

In the study, nearly 800 adolescents completed a questionnaire. Some of the children had parents with insomnia, others did not. Those who had a parent with a sleep disorder were more than three times as likely to have a sleep disorder themselves. More alarmingly, 17% of children who had a parent with insomnia reported suicidal ideations -- 11.7% more than children who didn't have a parent with insomnia.

To learn more about insomnia, hop over to AOL Body.

Abdominal obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance, high triglycerides, low HDL (good) cholesterol levels: a cluster of traits typically referred to as Metabolic Syndrome. All are known to be indicators of diabetes and heart disease in adults. What has recently been discovered, however, is that these same traits are also on the rise in adolescents.

Based on a 2007 study conducted at Penn State's Center for Childhood Obesity Research, Metabolic Syndrome is now on the rise in people of younger age. In this study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Metabolic Syndrome risk was assessed in 154 white, non-Hispanic 13-year-old girls and their parents. The results suggested that those individuals who demonstrated traits typically associated with Metabolic Syndrome also had a greater increase in fat mass between the ages of 5 and 13 when compared against the individuals who did not exhibit these traits.

A possible cause for the disparity was also considered -- based on further research into these individuals' eating behaviors. It turned out that the group at higher risk had consumed a great deal more sugary beverages between the ages of 5 to 13 than did the group that did not exhibit signs of risk.

One of the best days of my life has to be when I got my own phone line in junior high school and was finally able to chat away to my girlfriends without the watchful eye of my parents -- or worse -- my little brother. 'Girl talk' is a favourite pastime among females of all ages. I know men probably wonder what women can talk about for hours at a time but the answer is -- everything. From major-life changes to issues as small as what brand of toilet paper is best, girls can make it seem like the most important topic in the world.

But girl talk can be harmful too -- especially to adolescent females. A recent study shows that excessive chatting young girls can lead to anxiety and depression. I believe it; in my early teens, a large part of the time I spent chatting to girlfriends was spent gossiping about other girls and verbally tearing them down. When I wasn't talking to friends, I was worried about what they were saying about me. I wouldn't go back to that time in my life for the world -- young women can be horrifically cruel.

And yet talking to friends can be a source of comfort and inspiration. What do you think the solution is here?