Healthy Habits Parents Should Teach Their Kids.
As a parent, you pass more than genes down to your children. Kids pick up your habits too both good and bad.
Show your kids you care about them by sharing these nuggets of health advice that they will keep practicing even after they are no longer within your reach.
1. Make eating colourful
Eating foods of different colours isn’t just fun, it has health benefits too. Help your kids understand the nutritional value of including a rainbow of colorful foods in their regular diet. That doesn’t mean that every meal needs to be multicolored. But you should make an effort to incorporate a range of fruits and vegetables of different hues into their diet. Let the colours range from red, blue, and orange, to yellow, green, and white.
2. Don’t skip breakfast
Inculcating regular mealtime in children can help make it more likely that your kids will continue this good habit when they’re older. Teach them that a healthy breakfast:
- kick starts their brain and energy
- helps keep them strong, and
- keeps chronic diseases at bay
3. Pick enjoyable physical activities
Not every child loves sports. If they see you being active and find physical activities they enjoy, staying healthy and active becomes easy. They may very likely carry their love of these activities into adulthood.
If your child hasn’t found the sports they loved yet, they should be encouraged to keep trying, and be active with them. Expose them to a range of physical activities like swimming, football, or gymnastics. They are bound to find something they enjoy.
4. Drink water, not soft drinks
You can keep the message simple. Water is healthy. Soft drinks are unhealthy.
Even if kids don’t understand the reasons why too much sugar is bad for them, there is a need for the parents to explain to them the reasons why.
5. Reading habit
Developing strong reading skills is an essential component of a child’s success in school now, and at work later in life. It’s recommended you make reading a part of a child’s playtime and bedtime routines.
