Having healthy children isn’t as difficult and painful as many experts would like us to believe. As parent, moms and dads have to commit to:
- Educate ourselves on proper nutrition for us and our children.
- Taking the time to plan nutritious meals.
- Demonstrating by example what good nutrition is
- Supporting our child in finding healthy, tasty food
- Supporting our child to become an active member of the food preparation process
- Supporting our child to find physical activities that they enjoy
- Supporting our child to try new things
- Demonstrating by example that we believe in staying active
- Demonstrating what it means to love ourself, by taking care of ourself so that our child can emulate our behavior and love themselves too.
There are five steps to take today to change your child's future: (source firstmedicalonline.com)
STEP 1 : Understanding Proper Nutrition - Proper nutrition means that your child is getting all of the nutrients and vitamins that they need to grow strong and healthy. They need their calories and nutrients to be dispersed throughout the day, which means that skipping breakfast, having a candy bar for lunch and then having a healthy dinner isn’t giving them what they need to perform well during the day. Instead, offer your children 4-5 smaller meals each day or three main meals with two healthy snacks.
STEP 2 : Healthy Kids Begin With Healthy Parents - Take the time to be a good role model. There’s no doubt about it, healthy kids begin with healthy parents. As a parent, regardless of the words that come out of your mouth, it is your actions that your children really pay attention to. You can profess up and down how strongly you believe that good nutrition is vital for their health and development, if you’re sitting on the couch with your hand in a bag of chips, they’ll get the message that you don’t want them to hear. “These chips are better than an apple any day.”
STEP 3 : Expose Your Child to a Variety of Sports and Activities - Physical activity is important. It is important to keep our bodies moving and burning calories, it’s important for our heart, muscles and lungs. Physical activity is important for our metabolism, our development, our immune system, our coordination and even for our happiness. When we’re physically active, endorphins are released which stimulate feelings of happiness and well-being. Without physical activity, we suffer. Your children suffer. They miss out on the valuable health benefits of exercise but they also miss out on the mental and emotional benefits.
STEP 4 : Make Sports and Exercise a Family Event - Just as your children learn from your behavior and actions towards nutrition, they also follow your example when it comes to physical activity. If you want your children to be physically active and involved in sports, you need to demonstrate that it’s an important part of your life too.
STEP 5 : Limit TV/Computer Time - One of the biggest time killers for children of all ages, and adults too, is the television, computer, and video games. Children can spend hours of their precious time parked in front of a screen. Time that could be better used playing outside, practicing their favorite activity, or even reading a book. Also, quite often this time spent in front of a screen leads to unhealthy eating habits. After all, how can you prepare a sandwich while you’re engrossed in the latest video game or social networking site? You can’t, you have to grab a quick snack and head right back to what you were doing.
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