Do your kids eat breakfast?
By many reports, 40% of kids don't.
But everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right?
Here is some proof:
The State of Minnesota Breakfast Study showed that 'students who ate breakfasts before starting school had a general increase in math grades and reading scores, increased student attention, reduced nurse visits, and improved student behaviors'
Children who eat a healthy breakfast 'meet their daily nutritional needs, keep their weight under control, have lower blood cholesterol levels, attend school more frequently, and make fewer trips to the school nurses office complaining of tummy aches.'*
Kids 'who eat breakfast are more likely than children who skip breakfast to consume foods with adequate levels of minerals, such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamins, such as riboflavin, vitamins A, C, and B12, and folate.'*
Kids 'who skip breakfast do not make up for the missed calories at other meals.'*
So why aren't your kids eating breakfast each day?
Most likely it is because your family is already rushed in the morning and you don't feel like you have time to provide a nutritious breakfast. But remember that breakfast doesn't have to mean home-made waffles or french toast every day. There are many quick and easy breakfasts that you can give your kids that are also nutritious.
According to the American Dietetic Association, these can include:
ready-to-eat cereal with fruit and milk
toasted bagel with cheese
fruit-filled breakfast bar and yogurt
toasted waffle topped with fruit and yogurt
fruit smoothie (fruit and milk whirled in a blender)
peanut butter on whole-wheat toast
If you can't provide a healthy breakfast for your child at home, you might also look at breakfasts offered at your child's school or daycare.
**Source : http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/nutrition/breakfast.html
Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Family Exercise
Family Fitness
Fit families are healthy families who have an active lifestyle. Frequently, they enjoy the things they do together, and the things they do together foster better communication and closer relationships than watching TV does.
Family fitness takes some parental commitment, leadership, and imagination, and you may have to listen to a lot of grousing and whining to start with, but the entire family will benefit as a result. Five factors that affect your family fitness plan are cost, convenience, family-friendly environment, fun, and success.
Cost
Family fitness doesn’t have to be expensive. Sure, you can drop a couple of hundred dollars or more taking the family skiing. But you can find a slope and sled down it on plastic trash bags for free. Most communities have free or low-cost family activities at community centers or parks. Check your local newspaper or parks and recreation department, and use your imagination to come up with activities your family can do together that don’t break the bank.
Convenience
Families are busy, and convenience is essential to a family fitness plan. If you have to go through a lot of hassle or travel a long way on a regular basis, you won’t follow through. Plan activities that you can do in your own backyard or neighborhood, like play Frisbee. You can also stay home to rake up leaves and jump in them, or make snow angels in the winter months. If you join a club or team, make it one that’s convenient to get to, and one the entire family can be a part of. Joining a bowling league is a great way to keep the family involved.
Family-Friendly Environment
When you join a club or plan an activity, make sure your whole family is welcome. It’s not much fun to look forward to an outing, and then discover that your kids are the only ones there. You want an appropriate environment for young children, too, where they will be safe and not exposed to “adult” language or behavior.
Fun
Fun is the key to successful family fitness. If everybody has fun, you’ll all want to do it again. Ask the kids what kind of activities they enjoy. You could even let them choose some family activities and help with the planning. Have a family meeting, and come up with a list of activities your family wants to try.
In addition to making sure your family fitness activities are fun, you can make sure your family fun activities center around fitness. Take everybody miniature golfing for a birthday instead of having a cake-and-ice-cream party. Celebrate Independence Day by going on a 10K walk together (which you’ll have to train for together). Walk around your neighborhood at Christmas and enjoy the lights, or sing carols. Bring fun and activity together as often as you can, and you and your kids will begin to associate an active lifestyle with having fun.
Success
Every member of your family needs to feel successful at whatever activities your family chooses. They don’t all have to be good at the activity as long as they enjoy it and feel good about themselves doing it. Family fitness can become an unhealthy competition that leaves less athletic family members feeling like failures, and that can defeat the purpose. Choose activities that everybody can participate in and enjoy at least moderate success at.
When our families pursue fitness together, we benefit in other ways, too. Your kids will remember and treasure family camping trips, going swimming together, and having family snowball fights. You’re building good health habits and good childhood memories at the same time, and the whole family is having fun doing it.
About the Author:
Denise Nero invites you to visit http://www.fitnessandkids.com for more great fitness articles, sign up for a free newsletter and receive a free recipe e-book.
Copyright © 2008 by Fitness and Kids. All content of this article is owned by Fitness and Kids. You must obtain permission to reproduce the article in whole or in part. To request permission, contact www.fitnessandkids.com
Fit families are healthy families who have an active lifestyle. Frequently, they enjoy the things they do together, and the things they do together foster better communication and closer relationships than watching TV does.
Family fitness takes some parental commitment, leadership, and imagination, and you may have to listen to a lot of grousing and whining to start with, but the entire family will benefit as a result. Five factors that affect your family fitness plan are cost, convenience, family-friendly environment, fun, and success.
Cost
Family fitness doesn’t have to be expensive. Sure, you can drop a couple of hundred dollars or more taking the family skiing. But you can find a slope and sled down it on plastic trash bags for free. Most communities have free or low-cost family activities at community centers or parks. Check your local newspaper or parks and recreation department, and use your imagination to come up with activities your family can do together that don’t break the bank.
Convenience
Families are busy, and convenience is essential to a family fitness plan. If you have to go through a lot of hassle or travel a long way on a regular basis, you won’t follow through. Plan activities that you can do in your own backyard or neighborhood, like play Frisbee. You can also stay home to rake up leaves and jump in them, or make snow angels in the winter months. If you join a club or team, make it one that’s convenient to get to, and one the entire family can be a part of. Joining a bowling league is a great way to keep the family involved.
Family-Friendly Environment
When you join a club or plan an activity, make sure your whole family is welcome. It’s not much fun to look forward to an outing, and then discover that your kids are the only ones there. You want an appropriate environment for young children, too, where they will be safe and not exposed to “adult” language or behavior.
Fun
Fun is the key to successful family fitness. If everybody has fun, you’ll all want to do it again. Ask the kids what kind of activities they enjoy. You could even let them choose some family activities and help with the planning. Have a family meeting, and come up with a list of activities your family wants to try.
In addition to making sure your family fitness activities are fun, you can make sure your family fun activities center around fitness. Take everybody miniature golfing for a birthday instead of having a cake-and-ice-cream party. Celebrate Independence Day by going on a 10K walk together (which you’ll have to train for together). Walk around your neighborhood at Christmas and enjoy the lights, or sing carols. Bring fun and activity together as often as you can, and you and your kids will begin to associate an active lifestyle with having fun.
Success
Every member of your family needs to feel successful at whatever activities your family chooses. They don’t all have to be good at the activity as long as they enjoy it and feel good about themselves doing it. Family fitness can become an unhealthy competition that leaves less athletic family members feeling like failures, and that can defeat the purpose. Choose activities that everybody can participate in and enjoy at least moderate success at.
When our families pursue fitness together, we benefit in other ways, too. Your kids will remember and treasure family camping trips, going swimming together, and having family snowball fights. You’re building good health habits and good childhood memories at the same time, and the whole family is having fun doing it.
About the Author:
Denise Nero invites you to visit http://www.fitnessandkids.com for more great fitness articles, sign up for a free newsletter and receive a free recipe e-book.
Copyright © 2008 by Fitness and Kids. All content of this article is owned by Fitness and Kids. You must obtain permission to reproduce the article in whole or in part. To request permission, contact www.fitnessandkids.com
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Children and Exercise!
In today’s world, it would seem that more and more people tend to put exercise on the backburner in favor of more fast paced results to our desires. In recent years, there have been a significant number of diet pills claiming the “true” scientific way to lose weight and gain muscle definition. Unfortunately, it would seem that this kind of mentality has been passed on to our kids, and that they are finding less motivation to exercise.
Exercise programs for kids are hugely important. America holds the not so illustrious title of the fattest nation in the world and this moment, our kids are poised to inherit that title. That is something that all parents would not find as a particularly comforting thought.
For those of you not yet convinced that an exercise program for your kids isn’t a priority: The American Obesity Association states the single largest factor in childhood obesity is lack of physical activity and excessive sedentary behavior—that is to say, watching too much TV and playing too many video games.
Why Start My Kid on an Exercise Program?
Outside of the social pariah status of the obese in our society, there are significant, easily avoidable health risks involved with obesity. The AOA lists common health conditions associated with children who are obese because of lack of regular exercise. These conditions include asthma, Type 2 Diabetes, hypertension, orthopedic problems, and most frightening, sleep apnea—a condition in which breathing ceases during sleeping. Obviously not permanently, but the effects are loss of focus and a significant increase in the loss of logical thought.
An exercise program for your children is so important because of the large amount of health problems associated with those are inactive—namely obesity. Since 1974, the number of children classified as obese under the age of 11 has increased more than four times; from roughly 4 per cent to over 16 per cent in 2000 with the single largest cause of obesity is lack of exercise.
To help your child avoid these health risks, not to mention the psychological risks of being outcast because of weight, you need to set them up on a regular exercise program. Children’s exercise programs are not hard to do—just get them outside or keep them inside, but focus on them getting active.
It’s important to realize than a children’s exercise program does not necessarily mean pumping iron—rather it has more to do with cardiovascular activities that burn lots of energy. Examples of great cardiovascular activities are running, swimming, rowing, canoeing, rock climbing—the list goes on. It also doesn’t need to be simply running—it can be a game of tag, catch, playing soccer outdoors; anything that gets your kids heart beating and gets them sweating a bit.
Research has also shown that obese children tend to be more depressed than other children who are fit. In addition, physical activities, especially cardiovascular activities can actually make you feel great. The so called “runner’s high” is caused when someone who is engaged a high amount of cardiovascular activity gets a massive dump of dopamine into the brain—a chemical that instills a euphoric state in the person doing the activity, a natural high.
It would seem logical that getting your child on an exercise program should be a paramount as a parent to ensure the health and happiness of your child. But along with the exercise goes a good diet, healthy relationships, staying active, and of course, laughing a lot. All of these things contribute to your child’s life, and an exercise program for your child is, in reality, just a piece of the puzzle.
Visit: http://www.fitnessandkids.com/kids-stuff-equipment.html for commercial weight training equipment for kids.
copyright www.fitnessandkids.com
Exercise programs for kids are hugely important. America holds the not so illustrious title of the fattest nation in the world and this moment, our kids are poised to inherit that title. That is something that all parents would not find as a particularly comforting thought.
For those of you not yet convinced that an exercise program for your kids isn’t a priority: The American Obesity Association states the single largest factor in childhood obesity is lack of physical activity and excessive sedentary behavior—that is to say, watching too much TV and playing too many video games.
Why Start My Kid on an Exercise Program?
Outside of the social pariah status of the obese in our society, there are significant, easily avoidable health risks involved with obesity. The AOA lists common health conditions associated with children who are obese because of lack of regular exercise. These conditions include asthma, Type 2 Diabetes, hypertension, orthopedic problems, and most frightening, sleep apnea—a condition in which breathing ceases during sleeping. Obviously not permanently, but the effects are loss of focus and a significant increase in the loss of logical thought.
An exercise program for your children is so important because of the large amount of health problems associated with those are inactive—namely obesity. Since 1974, the number of children classified as obese under the age of 11 has increased more than four times; from roughly 4 per cent to over 16 per cent in 2000 with the single largest cause of obesity is lack of exercise.
To help your child avoid these health risks, not to mention the psychological risks of being outcast because of weight, you need to set them up on a regular exercise program. Children’s exercise programs are not hard to do—just get them outside or keep them inside, but focus on them getting active.
It’s important to realize than a children’s exercise program does not necessarily mean pumping iron—rather it has more to do with cardiovascular activities that burn lots of energy. Examples of great cardiovascular activities are running, swimming, rowing, canoeing, rock climbing—the list goes on. It also doesn’t need to be simply running—it can be a game of tag, catch, playing soccer outdoors; anything that gets your kids heart beating and gets them sweating a bit.
Research has also shown that obese children tend to be more depressed than other children who are fit. In addition, physical activities, especially cardiovascular activities can actually make you feel great. The so called “runner’s high” is caused when someone who is engaged a high amount of cardiovascular activity gets a massive dump of dopamine into the brain—a chemical that instills a euphoric state in the person doing the activity, a natural high.
It would seem logical that getting your child on an exercise program should be a paramount as a parent to ensure the health and happiness of your child. But along with the exercise goes a good diet, healthy relationships, staying active, and of course, laughing a lot. All of these things contribute to your child’s life, and an exercise program for your child is, in reality, just a piece of the puzzle.
Visit: http://www.fitnessandkids.com/kids-stuff-equipment.html for commercial weight training equipment for kids.
copyright www.fitnessandkids.com
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
A fun way for kids to exercise!
Are you concerned about your kids sitting around the house too much? Do they spend their day watching TV, playing video games or surfing the net? Are they turning into couch potatoes? As a parent you know how hard it is to get your child to do something good for their health. Heck, you probably haven’t been able to get them to eat carrots since they were toddlers, how are you supposed to convince them to go to the gym, or for a run. The key is finding an exercise that they enjoy, so they will continue to exercise and make it a lifetime habit. This is where the mini trampoline comes in.
Do you remember how much fun you had jumping on the bed as a kid? The Mini Trampoline, or Urban Rebounder lets your kids have the same fun experience without ruining your mattress or getting hurt from a fall off the bed.
The mini trampoline is one of the most versatile pieces of exercise equipment. You kids can jump on it in front of the television, or outside, and when it’s not in use, it easily fits in a closet or even under the bed.
Let’s look at some of the benefits of working out on the Mini Trampoline
It’s a low impact form of exercise
Burns more calories than jogging
Improves circulation
Gives you a great cardio workout
Strengthens your legs and thighs
Improves balance and coordination
Its very portable
Above all, it is A LOT OF FUN!!!!.
Don’t think rebounding is just for kids. You’ll get a great workout out of this as well. The mini trampoline is perfect for your entire family and a great investment in your health and fitness as well. It helps you burn fat and calories fast, but also works great when it comes to strength training. Your biggest problem will be to get a turn to work out. (We suggest you wait until the kids are in school).
When you are shopping for a mini trampoline look for a model with six legs. It will be a lot more stable than some of the cheaper four legged models. If you’re just starting out and also as an extra safety precaution, look for a model with a stabilizer bar.
We suggest the Urban Rebounder at http://www.fitnessandkids.com/urban-rebounder.html. You’ll receive the complete kit including the stabilizer bar, carrying case and workout videos. Everything you need to get you started.
Get bouncing today!
About the Author:
Denise Nero invites you to visit http://www.fitnessandkids.com for more great fitness articles, sign up for a free newsletter and receive a free recipe e-book.
Do you remember how much fun you had jumping on the bed as a kid? The Mini Trampoline, or Urban Rebounder lets your kids have the same fun experience without ruining your mattress or getting hurt from a fall off the bed.
The mini trampoline is one of the most versatile pieces of exercise equipment. You kids can jump on it in front of the television, or outside, and when it’s not in use, it easily fits in a closet or even under the bed.
Let’s look at some of the benefits of working out on the Mini Trampoline
It’s a low impact form of exercise
Burns more calories than jogging
Improves circulation
Gives you a great cardio workout
Strengthens your legs and thighs
Improves balance and coordination
Its very portable
Above all, it is A LOT OF FUN!!!!.
Don’t think rebounding is just for kids. You’ll get a great workout out of this as well. The mini trampoline is perfect for your entire family and a great investment in your health and fitness as well. It helps you burn fat and calories fast, but also works great when it comes to strength training. Your biggest problem will be to get a turn to work out. (We suggest you wait until the kids are in school).
When you are shopping for a mini trampoline look for a model with six legs. It will be a lot more stable than some of the cheaper four legged models. If you’re just starting out and also as an extra safety precaution, look for a model with a stabilizer bar.
We suggest the Urban Rebounder at http://www.fitnessandkids.com/urban-rebounder.html. You’ll receive the complete kit including the stabilizer bar, carrying case and workout videos. Everything you need to get you started.
Get bouncing today!
About the Author:
Denise Nero invites you to visit http://www.fitnessandkids.com for more great fitness articles, sign up for a free newsletter and receive a free recipe e-book.
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