Establishing a lifestyle that includes healthy diet and exercise is the best way to beat childhood obesity.
And although we all already know that, actually finding ways to implement exercise and a healthy diet into your child’s lifestyle is becoming more and more difficult every day.
To most children, an active lifestyle is about as attractive as a bundle of broccoli. Luckily, there are ways to introduce healthy diets and exercise routines into your child’s life.
In order to provide motivation, we’ve complied a list of ways to establish active behavior and beat childhood obesity.
Stick to a schedule
Having a schedule keeps your accountable. By exercising at a specific time every day you begin to make exercise part of your daily routine. It’s easy to find exercises already planned out for you. Need inspiration? Check out our fitness for kids pinterest board or shoot us an email if you’re looking for something custom tailored to you.
When you skip a workout, you feel like there is a piece missing from your day. Having a schedule to refer to is a great way to stick to anything – especially a fitness routine!
Make Sedentary lifestyle a reward – not the standard
Watching TV and browsing the internet are the de facto summer activities – we need to radically changed this. What if TV or interest use was actually a reward for accomplishing your goals?
How many times does your child flip through channels, looking for something to catch their attention? How many times can you visit the same website without getting totally bored? Wouldn’t your children enjoy TV and internet more if they only watched the shows or visited websites they like?
Limit time so they can’t surf aimlessly.
How would 1 hour (length of 1 show) of sedentary activity for every 15 minutes of exercise work for your children? If that doesn’t work, what about running in place during commercial breaks? Finding clever ways to fit exercise into your day is extremely important.
Introduce alternative ways of computer use
Stand up desks are all the rage these days! And for good reason, stand up desks are shown to prevent adverse health affects associated with sitting.
Using a stand up desk will likely limit the amount of time you spend online. It’s easy to surf the web all day when you’re sitting down, but standing up changes everything. You will burn more calories and spend less time online with a stand up desk.
Here’s how you can build a stand up desk for $22.
Plan Meals Ahead of Time
We all have our favorite go-to meals. They’re easy to make, they taste good, and they temporarily satisfy us.
Is your go-to meal providing the nutrients you need to live a healthy, active lifestyle? Probably not.
Simply planning healthy meals ahead of time prevents you from defaulting to your go-to meal. Not only will this prevent unhealthy meals, it will free up time throughout the day – You’ll save plenty of time by not staring at the fridge looking for something to eat.
Looking for a healthy schedule for your children? Check out our mountain bike summer camp in Santa Cruz and Los Gatos!