There is no age limit with regards to being healthy. While your children are still young, teach them the right ways to be healthy. If you think that kids’ diet is not that important and you’d rather have it developed all by themselves the moment they grow older, then you are probably raising your child wrong.
We understand how difficult it is to raise healthy children because the first 10 years of their life are the time when they are fond of eating unhealthy yet delicious food. They also like to do some activities that risk their overall health. Good thing kids are the best type of people who are always interested to learn new things. They tend to imitate what their parents do so you can right away teach healthy habits by showing them how you take good care of your own body.
Why Are Kids’ Diet Important?
Kids’ diet is important because if they can practice a healthy diet while they are young, it will be easy for them to maintain it until they get old. They will also be free of any health problems knowing that they eat the right food and do the things that keep them fit and healthy.
Nonetheless having healthy children is one of the greatest joys of being a parent. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t started your kids’ diet, as long as you are willing to make a change, you should start implementing healthy habits now!
What Are the Different Healthy Habits for Kids?
Make Colorful Breakfast Meals
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so make sure your child is already wide awake during breakfast time. According to a research study, children who skip breakfast are likely to go obese than the ones with regular breakfast meals. Eating healthy for kids is easy if you incorporate different colors in their meals. For example, you can prepare an egg which is color yellow, rice, red hotdog, and fruits with attractive colors like oranges, watermelon, banana, apple, and grapes. As long as there are different types of colors, it boosts their appetite to eat more and look forward to their next meal.
Let Them Follow a Routine
Following a routine is essential for a productive day for most adults, the same goes for children. If your kids are used to a routine, they will grow up healthy and more organized. You don’t actually need to tell your kids about the things they have to do during the day, as long as you let them join you with your routine, they can develop healthy habits right away.
For example, wake them up the moment everything is prepared to be served. If they are old enough to take a shower, you take your shower too. Every meal must be spent together as well as the other activities you can do for a day. Sleeping time should also be followed because their body clock will serve as a reminder as to when their body should get some rest.
Engage Them in Physical Activities
The physical activities they do in a day will serve as their exercise time. Of course, children can’t go to the gym and do the exercises intended for a healthy body, so the way they play and engage themselves in different sports is their stepping stone. Don’t just enroll them in classes that they are not interested in because the most important thing about physical activity is that it must be something that they enjoy doing the most.
Always remember that every child is different, so what your friend’s child wants may not be the same thing that your child likes to do. If in case your child is shy and doesn’t know what he wants at the moment, expose him to different activities such as sports, arts, and other talent enhancement programs and let him discover which one works best for him. You, as a parent, must do your best to encourage them because the type of activity they are into now can be carried until adulthood. Moreover, kids’ diet and cognitive function will be improved the moment they start to engage in different activities.
Prepare Healthy Snacks for Kids
Healthy snacks for kids are important for kids’ diet because three meals a day is not enough if you want to keep your children healthy. There must be healthy snacks for kids in between meals in order to feed their appetite without eating unhealthy food. Just because it’s a snack, it doesn’t mean that you prepare junk food, chips, soda, and other frozen snacks. That’s why you have to prepare them all by yourself so the snack won’t be unhealthy as you think it should be.
Healthy snacks for kids include whole-grain food as well yogurt drinks, raw vegetables, and fresh fruits. Just make sure that these snacks are not made of too much sugar or salt, or else it will be unhealthy for your kids’ diet. As you prepare these snacks, make sure that your hands are disinfected or use disposable gloves that reduce the risk of contaminating food, to ensure that the food you prepare for your kids is safe and healthy. You can buy all-in-one gloves on Amazon that you can use for any basic and essential needs including home cleaning and food preparation.
Keep Them Hydrated
Adults are finding it harder to drink water than soda nowadays because they are probably used to drinking these sugary drinks than water since they were a child. So, as early as now, teach your children the importance of drinking 8 glasses of water every day. This is the best practice for them to be fond of water no matter how bland it tastes. Moreover, mood and also performance tends to be impaired by dehydration in children, so dehydration has a big impact on your children’s overall health.
Limit the Use of Gadgets
The 21st century is the booming time for advanced technology, that’s why it is no longer unusual to know that every home has its own set of gadgets to use. Most especially, during this time where everything can now be done online. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to expose your children to these types of gadgets because doing so is not a healthy habit for kids.
You have to limit your children in using these gadgets because studies show that children 3-7 years of age exhibited sleep disturbances and language impairment due to excessive use of gadgets. So, if you want your children to have a normal life, encourage them to socialize instead of playing with their gadgets.
Conclusion
Different healthy habits for kids mentioned above are important to remember because they are the keys to maintain kids’ health. However, you should not forget to take good care of your children’s mental health by giving them praise and encouragement. Mental health is one of the things that could help them boost their confidence and stay motivated all the time.
Make sure that you are also hands-on about your children’s skin because they may be prone to skin tear or wounds the moment they start to engage in different activities. You may want to check the different skin teat treatments and prevention here.