Educating Your Kids about Healthy Eating and Workout | To an outsider, it may seem easy and straightforward to handle teenagers, but the truth is quite the opposite. It’s certainly not about just giving them what they want and enough room to do their own thing. It takes a lot more and it’s harder than most people imagine.
Among many things parents need to pay attention to is teenagers’ health, which is tightly linked to their nutrition and physical activity. Getting through to them in an attempt to help them and educate them so they can later manage on their own in life is far from easy, but it’s a continual process where both sides have to keep learning.
Here are several guidelines that can help parents educate their teens as to what is healthy eating and how important it is to exercise.
Set a good example
This may sound banal, but it’s a very effective way of convincing your kids to take the right path. Just do it yourself and set a good example! It’s not what you say that matters but what you do, so show them how to behave, how to solve problems and let them see that things take time, effort, energy and patience, but that results are achievable.
Once your teens see that you make the effort to eat healthy food and work out, they’ll be encouraged to do the same. Even better – get them involved! Bring them into the process, do research together and do things together – it will inspire you all to persevere and it will strengthen your bond.
Educate them about healthy food choices
When you model the desired behaviour yourself and actively teach your children about healthy eating habits, you will also boost their natural growth and help them maintain a healthy weight. All the good habits your kids pick up early on will help them maintain a healthy lifestyle when they grow up.
Among the most important aspects of healthy eating habits are portion control and sizing down the amounts of sugar and fat your kids consume. To achieve this, you can shop only low-fat or no-fat dairy products, lean meats, whole grain cereals and bread, and always have fresh fruits and veggies at hand for snacks. Also, avoid buying sweetened drinks.
As all of this can be quite overwhelming, particularly for moms who juggle many obligations each day, you can install the Mumli motherhood application and rely on its resources and recommendations, have it curated to your stage of motherhood, exchange experiences with other moms and save all your favourites in one place for later.
Prepare meals together
As mentioned above, getting your teens involved in the process can give them the necessary boost to get on board with the whole idea. Now, it may not be their idea of fun to prepare meals with you but it’s essential for their health and development.
Cooking with your teens is an amazing opportunity to teach them about good and bad food choices so they’ll know better in future when they’re on their own. As the saying goes – when you know better, you do better. So, have them do the shopping with you, teach them how to pick out the groceries and then show them that cooking is much easier than they have imagined.
Work out together
You’ll hardly find a teenager who isn’t embarrassed by their parents, so don’t get your hopes up about going to the gym together! On the bright side, there are lots of other ways you can be physically active with your teen – biking, jogging, hiking, kayaking, roller skating or swimming. All of these activities you can do together and make them an integral part of your lives now and of theirs in the future.
One thing you should insist upon teaching them is how to avoid the most common workout mistakes. Point out to your teens the importance of warming up before and stretching after your workout, drinking enough water, and eating the right food before and after their workout sessions.
Be supportive
This may not often show it, but all teens want is support and love from their parents. Regardless of how strong, independent, and self-confident they appear, they still need to know that you’ll be there for them no matter what. The same is with installing healthy eating and workout habits – it’s about you being there to support them every step of the way.
This is crucial in your teens’ development as they will learn quickly that the road towards health and happiness is often harder and longer than they initially thought. This is why they need to know that they have your support, whether it’s their sports career, music interests, hobbies or academic goals.
Raising kids has never been a walk in the park and with teens, it can get even more complex as their personalities develop and interests widen. This is why it’s important for every parent to be there for their teenager and help them find the right path. By guiding and educating them about healthy eating and workout habits, you’ll help your kids become healthier and happier adults.
