Healthy Kids

Encouraging Kids To Be Healthy: Start Young

Everyone wants their children to grow up to be healthy and happy. As parents, it falls to you to encourage your children to develop healthy habits early in life that they can continue as adults. In doing so, the focus should be how much fun healthy activities are, and how much better it feels to be active and eat properly.

Focusing on diets, weight, and appearance can lead children to develop unhealthy attitudes about their bodies and contribute to body image issues that may cause lasting psychological and wellness issues.

Children should start participating in activities at a young age. At two and three, the majority of the classes available are often geared toward parent participation as well. Swimming lessons, for example, are conducted with an instructor leading the parents through a series of activities designed to let children have fun while they get used to being in the water. By five, kids are ready to take classes on their own.

Look for classes that match their interests- if your child continually hangs upside down off the swing set, for example, a gymnastics class might be a good idea. On the other hand, if they spend all their time running around the backyard and kicking pine cones, soccer might be a better bet.

Encourage your children's activities and allow them to pursue a variety. Having different kinds of physical activity will be helpful, and will create a more balanced body and mentality. Don't push them further than they want to go with a sport, and if you sense that they are developing unhealthy attitudes, suggest that they step back and try something else.

Mix activity classes with at home activity- riding bikes through the neighborhood, playing baseball in the back yard, doing a morning yoga routine, etc. This will help them learn that they can have an active life outside of scheduled classes.