6 Healthy Habits for Highly Healthy Families

Last Updated on December 6, 2019

Managing your own health can be a big ask sometimes, and managing your family’s health on top is just another layer of stress and responsibility. However, with a few simple tips, it is easy to ensure that your family is as healthy as they can be. By making the following six healthy habits part of your routine, you will ensure good health for you and your family.

Go Outside Together Regularly

Getting enough exercise is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. If you exercise enough, then there’s every chance of you achieving optimal health. In order to encourage your children to live healthy lifestyles, you should aim to get out and exercise with them as often as possible. Taking your family on the occasional hike or outdoor excursion is an excellent way of bonding with them while also reaping the benefits of exercising and being outdoors.

You don’t have to spend hours outdoors in order to make exercising worthwhile. In fact, the latest research suggests that just 15 or 20 minutes of exercise every day can make a real difference to our health. As long as you are encouraging your children to get outside, and getting out there with them when you can, you will be instilling good habits in them.

Limit Screen Time

Many of us, both adults and children, are guilty of spending far too much time in front of screens. Cutting down on screen time, or at least limiting it to certain parts of the day, is important for children’s health. For one thing, screens emit light that can interfere with our natural sleep patterns. If children use a screen just before bedtime, it can make it much harder for them to get to sleep.

Try to work out a regular schedule that your child can stick to so that they know exactly when they are allowed to use their screens and for how long. You should be able to limit their screen time without being too restrictive about it. You don’t need to stop them using electronic devices altogether; only ensure that they aren’t spending their entire day on them.

Prepare Meals Together

Preparing meals as a family is an excellent way of encouraging your children to take more interest in the food that they eat. It also enables you to ensure that they are picking up good eating habits and that they understand the importance of a balanced and varied diet. Preparing meals together will also teach your children about how to cook their own food, and will prepare them for making their own healthy meals as they get older.

Turn Good Practice into Good Habits

The key to healthy living lies in turning good practices into good habits. This means not just doing things that are healthy, but making those things part of your daily routine so that they become second nature. Once you have established a healthy routine for your family, you then need to stick to it and encourage them to stick to it as well. Many families find it useful to use a calendar or planner in order to schedule family meals and other household chores. This is a great way of establishing habits and making the changes stick.

Rethink Snack Time

Choosing unhealthy snacks throughout the day is a big part of why many children and adults develop weight problems. If you can encourage your children to ditch the junk food in favor of more fruit and other healthy snacks, this will make a significant difference to their overall health.

Ensuring that your children start each day with a healthy breakfast will also reduce the amount of snacking that they do throughout the day. There are lots of reasons that breakfast is important, but one of the most often overlooked is that eating breakfast is often associated with a lower chance of obesity and weight gain. Check out these easy healthy organic breakfast ideas.

Regular Health Checkups

Regular medical checkups for you and your family are one of the best ways of ensuring that you all remain in good health. As well as your usual doctor, it is a good idea to find the best pediatrician that you can to manage your children’s health. A pediatrician will be able to advise you on how to best manage your children’s health as well as alert you to any problems with their health as early as possible. It is worth registering with a service like the one offered at katymemorialpediatrics.com so you know that your children will have access to healthcare when they need it. This service can help you with immunizations, ADHD consults, nutrition, and much more.

Managing your family’s health can seem like a daunting task, but it is far easier than many people realize. If you can get your family into just a few positive health habits, you should find that good health comes naturally to you all. Don’t try and make lots of dramatic changes all at once, as this is setting yourself up for failure. Instead, make changes incrementally and keep reinforcing them until they stick.

What healthy habits would you like your family to work on?