Escaping from the Dangers of Childhood Obesity

Teaching children about the benefits of exercise and eating nutritiously is something that must be done by example in order to escape the dangers inherent to childhood obesity.

Children follow behavior that is modeled by their parents and the authority figures around them. Children must learn at an early age the benefits of not being obese.

Many of the things we like or dislike doing are just done out of habit. You teach your kids about the benefits of eating nutritious fruits and vegetables and to have an active lifestyle for their good health. They will, of course, make their own decisions as adults but the childhood training that you provide when they are children will set the stage for good habits for the rest of their lives

One of the worst things that you can do is to have your children see that you don?t follow your own advice. This goes for your overall lifestyle not just exercise and eating a good diet. If you smoke, for example, it?s alright to tell your kids that they shouldn?t smoke. But in order to avoid appearing hypocritical, it would be a better to talk to them in an honest dialog about the dangers of smoking cigarettes and how you now wish that you had never started. This approach would have better benefits than just telling kids not to smoke because ?I said so?.

Getting exercise together with the kids is great for family bonding. This will start your family out on a healthy lifestyle of getting exercise that should follow them through their whole life. Get a family membership to the gym. Take a fitness class that includes the whole family.

Join a boxing class or martial arts academy together. Swimming is a family activity that burns a lot of calories. Why not just shoot some hoops in the driveway? It?s not just creating a healthy habit of getting exercise. It?s about creating happy memories for your family. Those are the memories that they?ll want to pass on to their kids.

Include the kids in the menu planning. Have them look through your healthy diet cook books to help you find nutritious recipes to try out. Teach your children how to shop at the grocery store for fruits and vegetables. This is a wonderful way to fight childhood obesity by modeling healthy behavior. Preparing a healthy salad or a low fat entree with you is a lesson that will stay with the child for life.

The best way to fight childhood obesity is through prevention. We, as parents, must be proactive and teach our kids healthy habits from their childhood. This is easier than having to undo an unhealthy mindset later. Childhood obesity is no joke. We must keep its ugly tentacles away from our families.

Using these ideas and others that you come up with will set a foundation for your kids that will set them on the path of making healthy lifestyle choices. Remember that it?s the mindset that we have to develop in order to set our families on this healthy path.

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Source: http://ojaivalleychildcare.com/escaping-from-the-dangers-of-childhood-obesity/

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