If you worry about your children’s health and wish for them to lead a healthier lifestyle, there are two main things that you can do. Firstly you can make sure that your entire family eats good nutritious foods made with fresh ingredients and free from artificial additives of preservatives and try and keep away from processed foods. The second thing is you can encourage your whole family to participate in sports that they enjoy to keep them active and exercising regularly. Whether you choose to include the whole family is a sporting exercise or encourage participation in teams sports, it is important that we make sure that we all get enough exercise and also eat healthily.
Eat Healthy Foods
If you eat healthy foods you will not only feel better from it, you will also have an increased amount of energy as well. Processed foods and microwave meals are quick, easy and convenient, but they are full of fats, salt, sugar, additives and preservatives which if eaten regularly in your diet, can be very unhealthy. This is not to say you cannot eat your favourite junk food or treats, part of a healthy diet is all about controlling what you eat and eating things in moderation. There is no harm at all in treating yourself once a month to your favourite pizza of dinner from the chip shop, as long as this type of food is eaten in moderation, it will have no long lasting damage to your health. Preparing and cooking food from fresh ingredients and cooking from scratch is not as hard and as a daunting a prospect as you might first think. Most supermarkets will have the option of fresh organic ingredients and will also sell all of the other items required to cook just about anything from scratch. This does not need to take a long time either, there are 1000’s of recipes that you can follow on the internet which will show you how to prepare and cook a meal in as little as 20 minutes, not including the cooking time. By taking just a little bit of time each day we can help improve all of our family’s health by eating a healthy nutritious diet, which is only a halve of what is required to remain healthy.
Exercise
The other halve of what is required is regular exercise for a sustained period of time. Some great forms of exercising are as follows;
- Running
- Hiking/Walking
- Football
- Rugby
- Tennis
- Swimming
- Aerobics
- Cycling
Team sports are great especially to get children interested in routinely exercising. There is most likely a range of local sports clubs within your area which will cater for all on the list above plus much more. A good way to find out is to contact your local community centre or council, who will be able to give you information on a wide range of sporting leagues and associations within your local area. If you or your children are not as interested in team sports then there is still lots available to choose from. You can even jump up and down on a trampoline. You can pretty much do anything that you enjoy, as long as it increase your heart rate and you do it for a minimum of 30 minutes, this can be classed as exercise. So you can have fun and stay healthy at the same time. This makes it a lot easier to get everyone in the family to participate if it is something which everyone enjoys.
Get them Interested Young
If you can encourage your children to become active from a very young age, they will reap the benefits in later life and enjoy a much healthier lifestyle. By getting them to engage in something which they find fun and entertaining, it means they will require less encouragement to get away from the TV, computer or games console, and go out and enjoy their selves playing the sport of their choice. This will get them into a routine which will be like second nature, so when they reach adulthood they will still be exercising regularly as it is something that they enjoy. Couple with a wide and varied healthy diet using fresh produce and ingredients, they will remain as healthy as can be for the years to come.
Image by click and dmscs via morguefile.com
This article was written by Sarah Hickens on behalf of Trampoline Warehouse. Trampoline Warehouse specialise in professional trampolines for all ages. Sarah is an active parent with a young son who she keeps entertained through a variety of activities and also a seasoned blogger who likes to share her ideas and experiences.