Teaching Kids A Healthy Lifestyle
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010When it comes to nutrition, kids tend to have a completely different view on the subject than their parents. To a child, anything that looks, smells, or feels good must be good for you. Kids have to be taught that not everything that tastes great will have a positive effect on their body. The adults in their lives must take the lead and help them make the right choices.
Making good choices is just as important for the parents since their children will learn from their examples. A kids face lights up at the thought of having a bowl of ice cream. Because it makes them happy, they should not be denied that happiness. The problem is to try to make children believe that even though they crave the good taste, their body needs something that is better for it. A child won’t believe that to be true.
Unfortunately weight loss programs like http://www.fatlossfactor.com are not designed with a child’s growing body in mind so it is important to start the education process early. Children as young as 18 months old can understand that a banana is good for them but the candy that they will not do much to help them grow big and strong. Nutrition can become something exciting to children if it is presented in the right way. }Learning experiences can be incorporated into the dinner table conversations.~Every meal can include fun discussions about eating healthy and why the foods they are eating are good too eat.~Don’t pass up the opportunity for kids to learn what the right choices are by talking about their choices as they make them.} Let the kids know how their body benefits from eating certain types of food and how it will help their body work at its best. Kids have a very open mind that loves to hear facts. One way to help a child like what they eat is to involve them when it is made. Children can feel a wonderful sense of fulfillment and pride when they present something they have done that helped get dinner ready and will learn things that will be very helpful as they grow into adulthood. There is not age limit on allowing a kid to help in the kitchen, even the smallest children can help in some way if a person thinks about it. Beginning at 3-4 years old, depending on the child’s abilities, children can begin be part of the food preparation process. Kids will take pride in anything that they have accomplished in the kitchen and that pride can help them overcome the fear of trying things that they haven’t had before.
There are lots of games that can be played to teach a child about the importance of food. Using flash cards with bright pictures can bring the right choices to life for children. Sensory activities involving food such as painting with pudding, making play-dough, and kneading bread use more of children’s senses.
A healthy body is one that is moving around and kids need to know that sitting on the couch playing video games is not a healthy choice. Kids need to be up and running around for at least 45 minutes every day. There is no age that is too early to stress the importance of this at. It doesn’t matter if the child is out helping walk the family dog or doing a six pack ab exercise program with their dad in the evening, the need for activity cannot be overemphasized. When I go on message boards like the biggest loser weight loss forum, there are always lots of stories from people who are battling weight problems that never got much exercise when they were kids and were never taught a healthy lifestyle when they should have been.
A child’s parents can teach them how to pick the right foods to eat and how to get active everyday if they put in the effort. By teaching your children how to live a healthy lifestyle you will give them the tools they will need as adults and allow them to teach their children when they have them.