Chocolate And Acne

In this article we're going to try to clear up the myth that eating too much chocolate causes acne. You've heard all the warnings by your mother growing up. "Don't eat too much chocolate, you'll break out!" You'd have to sneak out of the house to get a chocolate fix. And if you were like most kids, you did anything to get that fix. But was chocolate really the culprit for all those pimples? Studies show, based on a typical teenager's diet that chocolate may have been the least of the offenders when it came to bad complexions.

The truth of the matter is, pimples are caused by a number of factors other than chocolate. For starters, bad hygiene is one of the worst causes of bad complexions. Let's face it, most teenagers, especially boys, are too busy outside playing sports and getting dirty. Washing up is not exactly a priority to them.

And when dirty hands touch dirty faces that is just prime breeding ground for acne. Then there is the matter of diet outside of chocolate. One of the main causes of acne is oil. Many of the foods that teenagers eat have lots of oil in them.

One of the main offenders is pizza. Let's be honest, a teenager without at least five slices of pizza during the week is not a teenager. Most kids who eat in school will choose that slice of pizza over whatever there may be served that day that is at least somewhat healthy.

Then there is the next thing on the list, fried foods. Fried foods make up more of a teenagers diet than just about anything else. Most kids live out of a Burger King, Wendy's or McDonalds.

French Fries are certainly number one on any kids hit parade. And who doesn't just love a good bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken? But to further disprove that chocolate actually causes acne, there are a number of new skin care products on the market that are actually made of chocolate or have chocolate as an ingredient. There are some companies that put chocolate into their skin creams as a softener.

According to these companies, the antioxidants of the chocolate also help in preventing wrinkles. Theoretically, cocoa might actually prevent damage by free radicals to collagen, elastin and other proteins in the skin. Of course medical science has yet to either prove this or disprove this. Proof or no proof, at least 90 chocolate based cosmetics popped up last year and the market for chocolate based cosmetics is growing daily. As a matter of fact the normal booth that is displayed at the Chocolate Show in New York has blossomed into a full blown spa. Consumers are claiming that the chocolate based skin care products that they are using do in fact have healing properties.

Again, this has neither been proved or disproved. The point is, there are many more offenders of bad skin than just chocolate and by avoiding fried foods and dirty hands, your teenager will more than likely have a cleaner skin. .

By: Michael Russell