The best way to help your kids have a healthy lifestyle is to train them from a young age as their minds adopt habits quicker.
Maintaining a balance of everything is essential for a healthy lifestyle. It means taking responsibility for their diet, sleep schedules, playtime, and physical activity.
Once they are used to such a healthy routine, they will probably stick to it.
Start your kids’ day with a bowl of cereal, fresh fruit, yogurt, or milk. Encourage them to participate in school sports and co-curricular activities to make friends.
Physical activity will boost their brain functions, helping them absorb and process learned material in the classroom more quicker.
Limit their exposure to any screen as much as you can. Try to adopt a healthy lifestyle yourself first since children tend to imitate their parents. Spend quality time with them while taking part in collaborative activities.
Please do not put them on restrictive diets or give them an excess of anything, and help your kids maintain and develop a positive body image.
Such points are just the tip of the iceberg. Let us look at what experts have to say on the subject matter.
1. Go for Regular Health Checkup
Even if your child is doing fine, you should take them to a pediatrician for a regular health checkup. If your child suffered any birth injuries, you should get in touch with Birth Injury Justice Center to hold the party responsible for negligence.
The doctor might recommend some lifestyle changes in your child’s life to combat some minor health concerns.
It is better to do that than to give them medications. Remember that precaution is always better than cure. However, if they have to take certain medications, ensure they take them on time and regularly.
2. Take Special care of Hygiene and Cleanliness
Most diseases and illnesses spread due to germs, so minimize your kids’ exposure to unhealthy and unclean environments.
Clean the inside and outside of your house each day. Take care of sanitization, especially in the wake of COVID-19.
Conduct a special treatment for bugs. Humidity, moisture, and dirt usually give birth to house bugs. To avoid this, keep all house rooms airy and ensure that sunlight enters during the daytime.
Make sure your kids shower every morning, especially during the summer. Keep checking them for signs of lice.
Keep their hair length short so that they remain healthy and manageable. Trim their nails every other week to keep them tidy.
3. Maintain a Balanced Diet with Physical Activity
For an active lifestyle, it is essential to maintain a healthy balance between eating and physical activities. Too much of anything can be harmful.
Therefore, while feeding your kids, take care of the portion size of their meals. If you provide them pancakes, muffins, French fries, or burgers, keep their portion small and increase salads, fresh juices, or any other healthy item.
At the same time, make sure that they get enough physical exercise. Take your kids on long walks, to the park, play a sport with them, or take them swimming. They will learn a new sport while staying fit.
Maintaining such balanced habits will eliminate the child obesity problem, which is becoming a more significant concern in the US.
According to the CDC, over 14.7 million children in the US between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese. It makes up about 19.7% of the population in this age bracket, which is alarming.
4. Pack them a Healthy Lunch
Not all schools offer their student body healthy meal choices. Therefore, always pack your kids a healthy lunch. Include fruits, homemade fries, instant noodles, egg or chicken sandwiches, nuggets, or salad mixes that are easy to eat with fewer chances of leaking or spilling.
It can be challenging for younger children to take care of their lunch boxes and school supplies. Therefore, make their lunch options as simple as possible. Refrain from giving your kids any gravies, yogurt, or items that can be hard to eat in school.
Do not forget to hand out their water bottles along with the lunch. It is also essential to stay hydrated.
5. Make sure they Stay Away from Unhealthy Activities
As important as it is to practice healthy habits, it is equally essential to discourage unhealthy activities. Kids quickly get used to playing video games, using mobile phones, using social media excessively, applying makeup at a very young age, dressing up inappropriately, etc.
While curiosity might pique their interest, it can be hard to stop them from doing certain things. The best way to deal with it is to educate and supervise them.
Let them know of the harmful impacts of their habits and teach them how to deal with them.
While it may be okay to have a fun movie night, play games during playtime, dress up on Halloween and Christmas, and update social media profiles, doing these more frequently might lead to other problems. Therefore, set a quota for each activity to maintain balance.
6. Make sure Your Kids Eat and Sleep at the Same Time Each Day.
Taking care of your own and your kids’ meal and sleep times are equally essential for their health. In addition, they must also get around 8-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
If your kids have an active lifestyle, they would probably be more tired at night. Therefore, ensure they are home and in bed at the same time every night, preferably with an early night in.
Similarly, ensure you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner as a family. Even if you are not together during lunchtime, children typically get their school lunch break at the same time every day.
Give them dinner before 7 PM or 8 PM daily, and then retire for the night.
Conclusion
Taking care of your child’s lifestyle may be challenging, but it is more effective when adopted at a tender age.
Maintaining a balanced lifestyle will save them from many diseases and illnesses. Once they adopt a healthy routine, it becomes easier to maintain and stick to it.
Your child may eat unhealthy food outside or sleep late, and there may be disruptions on some days. Some incidents of discrepancies are acceptable.
Follow the tips mentioned above from experts consistently for better, healthier, and happier lives for your kids.