The Center for Weight Management

Encouraging your children to exercise and to eat healthfully are the keys to keeping them healthy for life. It’s important to be active with your children and make exercise a family priority. By scheduling exercise and meal times together, you’ll increase their fitness, overall health, and make memories together. Here are some guidelines to follow for your fun family fitness time:

Exercise - Schedule three exercise times throughout the week for your family. By establishing a routine, you’ll make deciding what to do easier for everyone.

Try a variety of activities including hiking, biking, and ball games. Allow a different family member to choose the weekly activities. This will keep them fun and interesting for everyone.
Join a club or sign up for a class with your child (for example: martial arts or dance)
Choose activities that appeal to both kids and adults.
Help each child find an activity that makes him or her feel successful. Don’t always select competitive activities.
Provide activities as special rewards, like swimming or bowling, rather than rewarding with sweet treats.
Buy sports equipment and toys that promote physical activity. Turn off video equipment and opt for a baseball and glove, or a Frisbee.
· Limit TV, computer and video game time to one hour a day.
Participate in activities with your child; walk, bike, play ball, skip, jump rope, etc. whenever you can.
Don’t leave your infant in a stroller or swing for long periods. Studies show that a sedentary lifestyle does not begin during childhood. It begins during infancy. Let your baby move and squirm around.

Like adults, it is important for kids to get a balance of cardiovascular, muscle strengthening, and flexibility exercise.

Cardiovascular exercise includes walking, biking, and swimming. These activities should be done three times a week for 20-45 minutes.
Muscle strengthening exercises will improve your child’s performance and protect them from injury.
Body weight exercises like sit-ups, push-ups and tug-of-war are the best types.

Above all else, get out and have fun with your kids. When cooler weather comes, make plans to join a class or gym to keep everyone moving.

Nutrition - Plan ahead for three, healthy, well-balanced meals and two healthy snack times each day. Often, pre-planning meals and including healthful foods in your shopping routine are all it takes to ensure a healthy diet for the whole family. Remember these food tips:

Don’t make your children eat when they are not hungry; it’s okay if they don’t finish every drink or meal.
Don’t use desserts to comfort or reward. Doing this teaches your children to value sweets more than other foods.
Offer your child a healthy, well-balanced diet. Avoid prepackaged, sugary foods and select foods low in fat and high in fiber.
Eat fast food just once a week, or less.
Eat all meals and snacks at the table, not in front of the TV.

Teach your child good eating and exercise habits by practicing them yourself. When you’re involved and plan healthy activities and meals, you and your children will become stronger, healthier and happier.

Contributed by Blair Moreau. Blair is an exercise physiologist at the Center for Weight Management and the Mercy H.E.A.R.T. Center manager fort Mercy Health Partners.