Special Project: Get the dish on nutrition

By Sinthia Mireya Turcios

Our parents have been trying to make us eat vegetables and fruits since birth to try and keep us healthy, but as we grow into our pre-teen and teen years, our parents start to let us have more choices of our own. One of these is choosing what we eat. It seems teens prefer bad foods, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By Karen Romero

Only five days before my 18th birthday, I was kind of happy about it, but I was feeling weird changes in my body: my mouth was very dry and I’d had vaginal infections. In the beginning, I wanted to think that that it wasn’t related to possibly having diabetes, but I kind of suspected it because I come from a diabetic family.

By Emmet Kowler and Emmet Kowler

Following a workout, Beau Karlen, 20, hurls a ball at one of his fitness instructors at the Institute for Exercise Medicine & Prevention.

By ThreeSixty contributors and Suzy Sorensen, nutritionist

Nice try. Ketchup does not count as a vegetable. Two courageous teens tracked their diets for three days in a food journal and turned them into a nutritionist to see how well they are eating.