Teaching Kids About Health

When you teach kids about health, there are two parts to your job.

You Are What You Eat
At a time when childhood obesity is at the highest levels ever, it’s important to control your children food choices. You can teach kids about healthy menu choices whether you’re at home or at a fast food restaurant. Let them know that meats, poultry, and fish are the proteins that work like fuel in a train’s engine. What else should kids eat? They need carbohydrates, and the best kind come from fruits and vegetables. But you can also show them that it’s all right to eat potatoes, pasta, and rice, as long as their food portions are the right size-a half cup or less. Of course, it doesn’t work if you preach this; instead, demonstrate it by serving that amount. Your children need your guidance in controlling their portions.
Don’t forget, by the way, that some fats are necessary in every diet, and a little sugar-the key word is little-never hurt anyone!

Exercise
Gone are the days when the neighborhood children spilled out of their houses after dinner and played together until the street lights came on. Families live by fast-paced schedules, and in most families both parents work. Plus, people worry more than they used to about the safety of their neighborhoods. Add to that the hodge-podge of extracurricular lessons that keep most children tied to a schedule, and their playtime is just not what it used to be.Many of them use their free time sitting in front of a television, game console, or computer.

One of the game companies had a great idea with a video game format designed to get kids off their duffs and onto their feet, but in reality most people still just sit to play. Teach kids about health, then, by making them go outdoors and play. Help them understand the importance of running races that get their hearts pumping. Get them flexing muscles while they climb on playground equipment or, better yet, trees. Whether they bike, skate, jump rope, or just go for walks, you are instilling beneficial habits in them that will last a lifetime.

Hygiene
Remember how much fun it was when your children were little more than babies, and they played in the bathtub with bubbles and rubber duckies? You can reminisce about those days while you’re enjoying your own time in the bathtub, relaxing in warm scented water, surrounded by dimly lit candles. However, somewhere during those years between rubber duckies and aromatherapy candles, your kids stop cleaning themselves when they bathe. Believe it or not, just about all kids-girls as well as boys-go through stages where they skip showers. Or they get into the shower but they don’t use soap.

Or they just put the same underwear back on. You need to tell them they will smell bad if they skip these steps. You can teach kids about health by keeping close tabs on their hygiene routines. Show your children how to soap up the washcloth and scrub all their body parts. Teach them how to get their fingertips going when they wash their hair, and be certain they wash behind their ears and between their toes. And no job is done until you get to the end! Your kids need to learn proper dental care, too. Demonstrate the right way to brush, and teach them how to floss. Make mouthwash a part of the daily routine.

Be in Control
Teach kids to be healthy by ensuring that they sleep enough hours each night. Give them chores so that they learn to handle responsibility. Talk about bad habits such as drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes with them. And model good behaviors: The best way to teach kids about health is by showing them, personally, how to be healthy.

-The Health Dude-

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