Kiddipedia
By Sam Wood
The big thing to remember here is that what is health and fitness to us doesn’t need to be called health and fitness to them. Exercise should be called playing and fun and healthy eating should be creating and cooking. Once these things are a big part of their life, then you are halfway there.
Fitness:
For kids, it has to be fun. If you are forcing them to do something they don’t want to do, it will not last. As a parent, one of our most important jobs is to facilitate. Whether this be trips to the park, encouraging kids to play outside in the backyard or countless (and often thankless) trips to school and club sport all week long, all year round. All kids are different and will gravitate towards different things at different speeds and at different ages. The one thing that never changes is that all kids need to move.
Health:
When it comes to health and nutrition with your kids, I’m a huge believer that one of the most important aspects is that they understand what real food is, where it comes from and that they enjoy creating or cooking in the kitchen. With so much junk food heavily marketed to children and so much food coming in a packet these days, it is scary when you see just how few kids understand the real food ingredients or further still, their origin. Teaching your kids about healthy eating doesn’t have to involve elaborate veggie patches and super healthy snacks because again, it should be fun. I promise you that getting your kids to make their own fruit salad or bake some cookies (making them from scratch), will be a great step towards a positive association between kids and food.
Our kids are sponges and if we tell them what to do but they see us doing the opposite we will only confuse them. So if part of the battle is to be a good facilitator, we should never underestimate that the other half is being a good role model.
To view on YouTube:
You may also like to read:
