Tips For Parents That Will Encourage Physical Activity And Good Nutrition Habits In Young Kids!
As parents, we value our kids' happiness and health the most and would like them to have a great quality of life. Parents aim to provide their kids with a better education than they had and better living conditions; however, they tend to forget about the importance of physical activity and healthy eating. They often neglect these two most crucial aspects of a child's well-being, leading to poor health, obesity, and lack of self-esteem, leading to frustration and resentment towards parents when the child hits puberty!
Parenting is perhaps the most difficult of jobs; it requires time, energy, patience, and passion, and unfortunately, the modern lifestyle does not make our life any easier! We can safely say that the odds are stacked against us! Let's have a closer look at how modern lifestyle might affect children in a bad way.
1. Gadgets and technological progress
Mobile phones, gaming, augmented reality, and various technological gadgets easily available and heavily promoted to make it seem like your child can not live without them have made their life passive and works to our disadvantage when the objective is to raise healthy young people! Being active is like the little ones. Look at your 1-2-3-year-old; they can not sit in one spot for more than 2 minutes, then later, as kids grow up, they go mad if they don't have at least a few hours of screen time per day! They get used to watching endless tv and playing video games, which, apart from being bad from the perspective of reduced activity, also often leads to distorted behavior! Why do many kids nowadays feel angry all the time? The answer might be in the content they watch and the games they play. Not so long ago, even though I was a child, I remember well what impact Sony Playstation had on my mood after just an hour of playing it with my friends. Sweaty hand, elevated heart rate, and lots of cursing! Kids nowadays often don't know how to ride a bicycle, how to swim, how to play outside, and how to make themselves busy without gadgets. In the past, children did not need gadgets to play with. They had imagination and could create games with a few rocks, sticks, and empty cans! We would play for hours outside, having imaginary castles, spaceships, and any other thing that children find interesting when young.
2. Food and nutrition.
All over the world, we live in an obesogenic environment. Technological progress made it worse. Starting from the 50ties, fast food, processed, and canned food appeared on the market, and the idea was to give us more room for the work-life balance since the rhythm of life became more dynamic, and there was a need to squeeze more tasks into the daily routine.
Fast food has a relatively poor nutritional value, and it's bad for balancing macronutrients. Such food is easy to digest, but it doesn't give a feeling of satiety, so to feel full, one needs to eat significant portions, and it's elementary to overeat. Different eateries are everywhere, along with an enormous amount of promotions and discounts on food, chefs in the restaurants like to impress us with new flavors and fancy serving.
Perhaps most importantly, many families do not have time to cook, as the modern world often requires both parents to work 40 or more hours per week! Then again, even if you eat at home, food has poorer nutritional value than in the past! And then there is the lack of education and knowledge so that parents choose the worst options thinking they are creating healthy family meals! Instant noodles, quick oats, and "healthy" heavily processed snacks often represent the foundation a child eats at home.
In simple words, what's the main reason your kid might be fat and struggling with their health
Insufficient physical activity, lack of healthy habits, and excessive calories consumed daily lead to obesity and many medical problems and diseases associated with it, like type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.
Check Studies - link 1, link 2
Research shows that the number of obesity cases has grown significantly across the globe. Unfortunately, there are no signs of positive changes unless we are more mindful regarding eating habits and lifestyle.
What we eat daily should have a good nutritional value while keeping the number of calories consumed in check! If we feed our children enough protein, fruits, and vegetables from early childhood, the chances that they will live with this habit for their entire life are higher than those raised with endless pizzas, burgers, and sweets. A variety of meals made of whole foods should prevail at our tables to ensure that the next generation will grow healthy.
Tips for parents that want their kids to grow up healthy and strong!
Teach your kids about the importance of movement and being active!
If they learn to be active at a young age, they will not need to cultivate this habit later. Make active hobbies a part of their daily routine; it can be any activities: bicycle, swimming, running, active games, football, boxing, or martial arts. The key here is to make this activity regular, so kids will have discipline and the habit of following the routine even if on some days there will be some distractions and no mood to move.
Those who have been active since childhood don't have a problem adapting to the gym routine when they are adults, they have better muscle memory, and it's easier for them to progress with years since they have had an early start.
Teach them young how NOT to spend weekends in front of the TV, go for a walk, play some active games together on the weekend, and involve other family members in any active rest regularly.
Our bodies are evolutionarily supposed to move. While shifting to a sedentary lifestyle globally, it gets harder to stay active. That's why it's not surprising anymore to see such diagnoses as heart diseases, diabetes, and joint problems even in youngsters.
Cultivate healthy eating habits!
The ideal nutritional option would be home-cooked meals with a healthy balance of macros. Add protein food to each meal, incorporate the habit of eating enough fiber with each meal, add variety to your daily menu, and do not replace balanced meals with the empty calories from sandwiches, pastries, instant noodles, and pizza several times a day!
Find out what happens in 4 weeks when you feed a child with fast food for 4 weeks and limit daily activity - link
Kids know the taste of fatty meals and foods rich in carbs, but they need help introducing them to protein meals and veggies. Kids' snacks mainly consist of chocolate bars, sandwiches, burgers, or a happy meal from McDonald's. There are primarily cakes and other sweets, sugary drinks, and food with a low nutritional balance at birthday parties.
Pizza and any other food from the delivery are okay, and the point is that 80% of your and your kids' meals should be whole foods with decent nutritional value, and 20% goes for something which you or your kids find delicious.
The earlier parents will introduce them to various sources of fiber, protein-enriched meals, nuts, legumes, fish, and dairy products, the higher the chance that they will have a better quality of life and adopt a habit of eating not only fast food.
Do not force-feed your kids; rather, let them get hungry!
Do not force your kids to eat when they are not hungry. Also, do not force them to complete a meal if they feel full, and do not rush them when eating! Some families still force their kids to finish the meal; the plate should be clean no matter what. Remember that kids need less food than adults, they understand whether they are hungry, and the most critical aspect of overeating is that the excess calories consumed our bodies store as fat. Eating more than it's required physiologically leads to obesity. While kids are active, they move more and burn more calories because their body is still growing. Sooner or later, they become adults, start driving cars, stop walking and often shift to a sedentary lifestyle.
The more we eat without real hunger, the more difficult it is to understand hunger.
For the same reason, don't reward your kids with food and sweets. Do not exclude it from their life, but a cultivated habit of polishing the lunch with a slice of cake or finishing 2 bars of chocolate because "it makes me feel good" doesn't contribute to a mindful living where ideally, each of us should understand that it's normal to feel sad from time to time. It's not mandatory to recover from sadness or anxiety with food. Ideally, each of us should know that endorphins increase significantly after physical activity. There are more health benefits from being active compared to a bar of chocolate, a cake, or a few slices of pizza. On the other hand, mindful eating doesn't mean excluding any delicious food. The point is to have a balance.
Blood work recommendations
Monitor your child closely. If you notice a sudden lack of energy, your child could have a minor vitamin or mineral deficiency! It's always better to find and fix deficiencies at the earlier stage if there are any. The more conscious we grow, the fewer diseases we have, and our overall mindfulness in any sphere of life contribute a lot to our well-being in the long run. Make sure you communicate with your child's medical doctor, as they can provide sound advice.
Create proper sleeping habits
Let your kids have a proper sleeping routine and enough rest. Today's rhythm of life doesn't leave a chance to reflect on important life events, plan our schedule, and focus on our goals. If your kids know how to plan their tasks and rest since childhood, balancing all the rush and mess will be more accessible when they have responsibilities at school, university and work. Teach kids to develop a book-reading habit or storytelling as a pre-bed routine instead of watching television or spending time on their iPad.
In the era of Netflix, endless series, and cartoons, kids lack focus and grow anxious, which doesn't contribute to their ability to reflect and analyze, and they will need this skill when they grow up.
Utilize the power of meditation and breathing techniques to promote well being
Even 15 minutes of meditation a day increases our ability to focus, relieves stress, and raises awareness. When you've got a habit of meditating regularly, your kids likely adopt it and incorporate it into their daily schedule when growing up. Kids adopt 80% of the lifestyle they see in their family house.
Power of meditation - link
Be a Good role model - participate in physical activity, practice discipline, and other health-promoting behaviors
To summarize all the above, we emphasize that the best thing parents can do for their kids is to teach them how to live healthily and mindfully with their example. When we as parents show them how we live and what our healthy habits are, it doesn't look weird to them when they grow, it won't take years to adopt these habits later on, and they won't waste a lot of time, and effort to break bad habits which are easy to copy from the environment.
No one has all the answers to what is required to instill good behavior and healthy habits in your child, and many parents find it overwhelming and struggle to spend quality time with their children. That's why I hope that this article will give you some vital information that you can apply when raising your child!
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