July 27, 2024

Family Fitness by Brett Klika, C.S.C.S

November 22, 2014 By Leave a Comment

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) nearly 70% of America’s adults and about 30% of our children are overweight or obese.

It appears these stats aren’t independent.

Research suggests overweight, inactive children often come from overweight, inactive parents.

The cycle of caloric over-consumption and sedentary behavior in the home appears to be taking its toll on all members of the American family unit.

Children’s attitudes and behaviors towards exercise and nutrition are significantly influenced by their parents.  If mom and dad see exercise and quality nutrition as punitive, odds are, the kids will too.

On the other hand, if exercise and nutrition are embraced and celebrated in the home as part of a happy, healthy lifestyle, children learn positive habits for a lifetime.

A family that exercises together THRIVES together.  

Getting off the couch and sweating with your kids not only burns calories and improves fitness for everyone, it can improve your relationship, decrease stress, and increase academic performance.

Here are three tips to getting your family sweating and smiling together:

1.  Make it all about fun
Exercise is not limited to regimented routines.  Anything that is sustained, active, and physically challenging can improve health and vitality.

Find an activity the family likes to do together and do it a few times per week.

2.  Family challenges
Kids and adults both love a little competition.  While adults are often physically superior in regards to strength and other athletic attributes, certain activities can even the playing field.

Get off the couch and challenge your kids to one of these fun family competitions below, right in your living room!

1.  The Get-Up Guru
2. The Endurance Challenge
3. Fast Hands

3.  Speak kindly
Remember, if parents have a negative attitude about exercise and nutrition, their kids most likely will too.  If children hear that “mom or dad exercises because they’re fat and have to lose weight” it sounds like it’s a punishment.

When mom or dad talk about exercise in a positive light, i.e., “mom and dad exercise because it keeps us healthy and makes us feel good” it sounds like a reward.

Try these 3 tips to create a happy, healthy, active family for life!

Brett Klika, author of the Underground Workout Manual- Fat Loss Results for Busy Adults (www.undergroundworkoutmanual.com) is an award winning personal trainer, author, and international motivational speaker.  He inspires men, women, and children around the world to create a culture of wellness in their home and live the best version of their life.
Contact Brett with questions or comments at brett@spiderfitkids.com.

Filed Under: Your Fitness Tagged With: , , , ,

Summer and Kids: How to Stay Organized by Coach Juli

May 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

If you are a parent of a student-aged child you may not be as excited for school to end and summer to begin as your child. For kids it is a time for long lazy mornings, random meal times, playing outside in the middle of the day, and mid-week sleepovers, but for parents it’s another story all together!

For the adults in the equation, it’s days of interrupted routines, minimal structure, bored children, and often the need to work with children being left to their own devices during the weekdays.

Staying organized for the summer months takes a bit more planning because of the lack of structure when school isn’t in session. Start by finding out what activities your kids wish to do during the summer days. If they want to sit around and color pictures all day, that’s great, but if they want to do things that require you to drive them around everywhere you might need to work on that with them and come up with a reasonable schedule that works for everyone.

Don’t panic! Here are three tips for staying organized for the summer:
1.    Keep easy to grab snacks and small meals for children so they can feed themselves when they are hungry. Family mealtimes may be a just a few weekly dinners, so for breakfasts and lunches they can learn to fend for themselves – with your providing good food in the cupboards & fridge.
2.    Make a list and post it on the fridge entitled: “Things I can do” that you compile with the children so you don’t have that constant “Mom, I’m bored!” whine coming from down the hall every few hours.
3.    If you have really young kids, you might want to secure a ‘mother’s helper’ over the summer to keep the kids safe and entertained while you are home or running errands. Jr. and Sr. high school students who can’t work out in the community yet often love these opportunities.

Attempt to keep some structure to the days as best as you can as children tend to do better with some routines.

Coach Juli is a Professional Certified Coach with a specialty in Productivity specifically those with ADHD. She works with individuals at any stage of life who find themselves stuck and wish assistance and skills to better organize their lives both in the workplace and at home. For more information, go to www.coachjuli.com.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Big Picture of Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,