Would you consider your family a healthy one? This may not easily be obvious in your appearance. Everybody may look to be in the right weight, but if you have many unwholesome habits, you and your kids may end up being sickly and sluggish.
When you’re frequently unwell, even with minor illnesses like allergies or mild tension headaches, you can’t perform to your full potential. It would also affect the quality of life you lead. If you really want the best for your kids, you need to train and condition them to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
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Healthy Family Habits
Your lifestyle is defined by your regular habits. As the parent, you can set the tone for your family life and help your children build healthy habits. Here are some awesome ideas for ones you can start with your family now.
1. Make smart snack choices.
Many parents tend to be lenient with snacks, allowing their kids junk food while being careful with the nutritional content of the actual meals. Any nutrition specialist will tell you, however, that snack time is the perfect opportunity for you to supply additional nutrients in case they were being picky at lunch or dinner.
Good snack picks include fruits, nuts, seeds, hummus, vegetable sticks, etc.
2. Opt for slow food.
This means serving dishes that were prepared with fresh ingredients and without going through any shortcuts.
It also means taking your time to consume these dishes, ideally together as a family during mealtimes. It’s even better if everybody contributes to the preparation of the meal.
This makes mealtimes opportunities for true communion. Having such a daily ritual is a healthy tradition that fosters family unity, a wholesome diet, and healthy digestion.
3. Set aside devices when you’re together.
Be truly present with each other. You fail to do that if each one is more engaged in whatever’s happening in a phone or a tablet. Consciously interact and do activities that require all present to participate or promote conversation.
Doing this makes you family bond stronger. You also prevent your kids from letting their lives revolve around a digital world and their days be filled with screen time.
Teach your kids true etiquette with regard to phone use in social situations. It has always been considered bad manners to take calls or play a handheld video game in a social setting.
Back in the day, you had to excuse yourself and step away from the group to take an important phone call; otherwise, you just let it go to voicemail. Just because it’s common for people to fiddle with their phone in social gatherings doesn’t mean it’s no longer rude. It still is.
4. Go for daily walks.
A brisk morning walk is very beneficial to one’s health. If you can do this as a family, you get to make sure that everybody is energized for the day.
Walks are said to promote a positive mood, helping reduce anxiety and depression in the process. They also increase metabolism and improve quality of sleep.
If everybody’s in a rush in the morning, you can take your walks during other times of the day. The important thing is to make it a family habit.
5. Garden together.
Working together in a family garden is a great way to spend outdoor time together. Gardening is a healthy survival skill to teach your children. At the same time, you get to harvest fresh produce for your consumption.
You don’t need a big yard to grow and keep a garden. If your outdoor space is no more than a bit of patio or a balcony, that would also work. Container gardening and vertical gardening are very much effective.
If you live in an apartment building and do not have any outdoor space you can claim as your own, you can simply have window gardens. You can plant herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Trees are probably out of the question, but you can still grow and harvest.
If there’s a will, there’s a way. This is definitely true for the desire to have an edible garden.
Happy and Healthy Together
At the end of the day, these good habits are fueled by a positive mindset. True joy and contentment stem from a grateful attitude. Teach your kids to be thankful and acknowledge their blessings. A sense of entitlement is a fast pass to poor behavior and unhealthy life choices.
Happier people have the right perspective and are more inclined to take care of themselves. They recognize what the most important things in life are, so they feed their soul with a spirit of thankfulness
Teach your kids not to get bogged down by a lack of luxury and worldly success. Time and again, these have been proven to not bring any genuine lasting happiness, so establish good habits, but, more importantly, train their minds to be positive and thankful.