Activities to help children develop healthy habits

Tips to help you instill healthy habits in your children and create a supportive family atmosphere

You try to teach your child to eat vegetables – but every time he refuses flatly. You would like the whole family to get together for dinner every day – but there is always someone else with urgent things to do. Everyone in your family understands how important physical activity is, but on the weekends you watch TV instead of going to the stadium.

Perhaps everyone is familiar with such situations. But even in spite of the rapid pace of life and busyness, it is possible to learn how to lead a healthy and happy life. Consider a few tips on how to achieve this.

1. Grow vegetables in your own vegetable garden. Want your children to enjoy eating vegetables? Grow them at home. Buy seeds and plant them with your children. Take care of the plants together: water them every day and watch them grow. Talk to your child about how they think the plant will grow and bear fruit. If you don’t have much experience with growing plants, don’t worry. Many vegetable crops (e.g. carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.) are unpretentious – they are easy enough to grow.
2. Cook food together. If you cook meals with your child, you can develop healthy eating habits as well as strengthen communication and emotional connection with them. If you have a large family and don’t want too many people in the kitchen, follow the “divide and conquer” principle. Cook dinner with one of the children, and the next day let your spouse do the same with the other child.
3. Get together. If you’re rushing to work every morning and busy with work meetings or fitness workouts in the evening, you may find it difficult to get together as a family for dinner. But try to eat with your family at least once a day. It doesn’t matter if it’s breakfast or dinner. Get together and talk about how the day went for each of you.
4. Make your diet more healthy. You don’t have to talk your kids into eating healthy foods. Eating healthy can be fun. Allow each family member to choose a meal that you will make once or twice a week. But set some rules: the diet must include protein, healthy carbohydrates, and fiber. Go grocery shopping with your child, encourage him to help you choose fruits and vegetables. Make small changes to your usual diet: for example, if the child likes pizza, make it from vegetarian products.
5. Spend time outside. You can just walk, ride bicycles, rollerblade, or go to the sports field. Each of these activities will help you and your child be physically active. On the day off, instead of putting on cartoons, take your child for a walk in the nearest park or plan a bike ride around the neighborhood. Instead of going to the movie theater, play soccer or badminton at a nearby sports field.
6. Make time to strengthen your emotional connection with your family. Set aside time each week to spend with your family. It could be a pizza dinner together on Fridays, a weekend walk, or a board game night. Whatever idea you come up with for the whole family, make sure you all have plenty of time to socialize.
7. Encourage and support your loved ones. Happiness also implies feeling good about yourself. Is the child worried about an upcoming test? Is your spouse preparing for an important presentation at work? Create an atmosphere at home where all family members support each other and celebrate everyone’s successes.

The seven tips discussed above will help you develop healthy eating and physical activity habits. You will spend time with your family even during the most hectic times in your life. Not only will this help create a healthy family atmosphere, but it will also make you more united and happy.