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.



Chocolate has been blamed for many ailments including acne, tooth decay, obesity, and lacking of food value. It has also been known to have an anti-depressant effect, cause hypertension and even have an aphrodisiac effect.

We know that chocolate is basically harmless unless, like everything else, it is over-consumed. Chocolate has been found not to cause nor aggravate outbreaks of acne. These results are backed up by further research that shows acne in no way is affected by chocolate.

Recent scientific studies have suggested chocolate boosts the serotonin in the brain that produces a calming effect and stability. Stress has been identified as a cause of acne. If chocolate stimulates the serotonin and calms the nerves, then chocolate could ironically be found to assist in acne restraint.

Chocolate lovers will be pleased to know that nutritionists believe chocolate plays a nutritional role in a balanced diet. The facts are that chocolate carries about one-third of an adult's daily requirement of antioxidants.

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.