TGIF Parents! It’s the weekend, and we will be talking about family-friendly things to ensure a healthy lifestyle for the whole family. Living a healthy lifestyle is a must for every family to grow together, but the situation in recent years has not made it easy for most; especially with the COVID-19 pandemic in the previous year, making most families sit at home and neglect certain healthy lifestyle practices. These practices do not stop at our physical health but our mental health as well.
What makes up a healthy lifestyle for different families and individuals might differ; but there are general principles that every family should adopt. Being intentional about these healthy living practices will cultivate habits overtime within the family to live healthily.
Here are the ways we can ensure a healthy lifestyle for the family.
Eating Good Food
What we eat is an important part of how we ensure a healthy lifestyle. Today, most families are used to eating out or getting fast food; which eventually has a negative effect, especially on the children. Parents should create a healthy diet routine for the children to follow; in the process cut out the unhealthy things that they eat such as junk food and soda drinks.
Create a healthy five servings of food daily, which include, breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner, and a healthy serving of fruits and vegetables. Making this into a routine will get your children used to it and therefore, make healthy living a lifestyle.
Having Quality Rest and Sleep
Stress is something we can’t avoid in our day-to-day, but we can do well to reduce it by getting adequate rest. The first thing to do is to stop glamourizing stress as a normal thing so we do not see it as a part of our lives; and so also that our children don’t pick on that. So we have to ensure we build anti-stress plans into our homes and lives. A big part of this is the quantity and quality of sleep that we are getting; most importantly for children at this important growth stage of their life should get enough sleep.
Parents can implement a routine at night for every member of the family to sleep, such as prayer, reading, meditations, and so on; this leads to better quality sleep and rest for the family and an overall healthy lifestyle.
Engaging in Exercise
A lot of research shows that there are a lot of diseases that are linked to a sitting pandemic. Sitting for too long, doing nothing, nothing moving around is dangerous in the long term; as a family, we want to make sure that exercising is a part of our lives, trying to move around as often as we can. Making this a routine as a family, especially for children will make for a healthy lifestyle.
This is made possible by taking evening strolls, signing up for the gym, or simply going on youtube, finding a dance routine, and doing it as a family. Incorporating this into our lifestyle will ensure our sound health.
Model a Healthy Lifestyle as a Parent
As parents, an important way to ensure a healthy lifestyle in the family is by showing it in real-time. Children are in a learning phase, and them seeing our day-to-day activities will tell on how they take healthy living practices. Whether it is in our eating, resting, or exercising routine; showing a visible dedication to living a healthy life will excite children to want to be a part of it; even without having to teach it to them.
Practice healthy living in the family today and making it into a habit to allow us to be the best we can be as a family and a society.
Read Also [Keys to a Healthy Lifestyle]
