Preface

In a person's life, adolescence is a crucial period since it determines how they will view the world and interact with it as adults. It is imperative to understand adolescent development, environmental influences, and risk and protective variables that can affect adolescent health to support the health and healthy development of all adolescents. Thus, maintaining a healthy youth population will ensure a healthy adult population in the future. Approximately 20% of adolescents experience a mental health disorder each year, with depression and anxiety being the most common. About 11% of adolescents aged 13-15 years use tobacco products worldwide. Eating disorders like Anorexia and Bulimia are more prevalent in high-income countries, affecting 1-3% of adolescents. The three modifiable lifestyle behaviours strongly associated with development of LSRDs - Smoking, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity, are alarmingly increasing in youth and adolescents.

If teenagers are equipped with information and have life skills, they will not only benefit socially and economically, but also support the country's future development in a much better way. Several factors have been identified as leading causes of lifestyle diseases, including lack of physical activity, irregular eating habits, changing lifestyle choices, and sedentary work and stress. For example, the prevalence of obesity among adolescents has increased dramatically in many parts of the world, including both developed and developing countries. As of 2022, over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese.

The objective of the book “Lifestyle Related Diseases in Adolescents: Addressing Physical, Emotional, and Behavioural Issues” is to give an insight on the adolescent health as it is a distinct period in human development. There are twelve chapters in which we have taken a multicentric approach with topics ranging from emotional and cognitive health, nutrition, physical inactivity, eating and sleeping patterns. prevalence of obesity to drug and alcohol-abuse, social behaviour, and anxiety during adolescence. With this book we try to highlight the risk factors and determinants of all these LSRDs, which are a looming threat, endangering the youth of the world and where an immediate intervention is needed.