Children love to play, so use play in as much as you can to teach your children healthy habits. Play can get your child off the couch and or computer and doing a fun activity and burning calories. If your child plays sports everyday they can defeat childhood obesity. The easiest way to do this through sports. Whether your child is a boy or girl there are many choices. Basketball is great for cardiovascular fitness and overall health. Baseball and softball are fun to play and teach social skills and teamwork. Soccer is great to keep kids in shape and is often the activity children play the most. If we can make healthy activities play for children they will do them willingly and stay healthy. Team sports teach teamwork and are competitive which teach children to have fun and learn to go for their dreams. Children need to get outdoors and away from their video games and computers. Physical activity and playing sports makes kids healthy.
Outdoor activities do not have to be sports. They can be hiking, biking, jogging and even walking. Anything that raises the heart rate will increase children’s health. This can increase strength and tone and help decrease childhood obesity, diabetes and hypertension in children.
Many communities have public parks and trails to take children to get their play on. Family outings can be an event your children look forward to every week. Plan these trips at least 2-3 times a week. Do events the while family can enjoy and do together such as jogging or a riding bikes.
Dinner preparation can be made into healthy play also. Let your child help you prepare healthy meals with you. You can turn it into play by making up games. Have the child mix up salads with you. Have them mix them with as many different colors as they can come up with. This will help them have fun playing while gaining the most diverse nutrition available with all the different colored vegetables. You can even have your children name the fruits and vegetables. That way they can make a game out of who will be coming to the salad bowl for instance. It sounds funny but when kids name their food they take a greater interest in it.
As you can see play can be used to teach your children healthy habits. Healthy play for children has three main aspects to it. There is outdoor activities, sports and most important of all nutrition.
Jay Holt is a graduate from the University of Florida’s nutrition college. Jay is a health and fitness advocate and has combined his literary aspirations with his love of nutrition.
His ability to see the world through a child’s eyes is unequaled. His new book “Tommy the Tommy the Tomato Teaches Nutrition” is highly recommended by parents and educators everywhere (and kid-approved).
For more information about the book Go To
[http://www.tommythetomato.com]
By Jay R Holt | Submitted On May 02, 2012
Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jay_R_Holt/330911