In today’s instant gratification world, it is getting harder and harder to teach our children how to eat properly and stay active. Its getting harder every year with fast food restaurants on every corner ready to have an 800 calorie cheeseburger in your child’s hand in 3 minutes or less and video games and tv so easily available to babysit our little ones while we take care of ourselves and our daily duties. We tend to lose site of how easy it is to form these horrible eating habits and how hard it can be to break them. These habits lead to childhood obesity and if they don’t, its almost guaranteed to catch up with them as adults. I speak from personal experience on that one.
Harmful effects of childhood obesity include:
Type 2 diabetes
Insulin resistance
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Sleep apnea
Liver disease
These are just the health problems. That doesn’t even touch the psychological damage we could be doing by not teaching our children how to properly care for their bodies. We only get one!
Now is the best time to start cutting sugar out of your children’s diet. Start substituting sugary candy with fruit and other naturally occurring sugars to keep them satisfied between meals. No more sodas or juices, water is always best.
It is recommended that children get at least an hour of physical activity a day. Many parents find it hard to set aside even just an hour to kick around a soccer ball, throw a Frisbee or just go for a little walk to the park. The newer morning children’s programing is actually quite encouraging in getting kids up off the couch and moving and dancing with the characters. When its too late in the day for that, check into an easy DVD. Since this is an Elmo blog, I recommend Elmo of course. He speaks perfectly with children and Grover is a most excellent teacher as well.
Check out these recommended DVD’s.
More than likely, it is getting colder by the day where you live. Sometimes it is hard to find good, healthy activities to keep your children occupied and active during the winter. FIsher price has released a toy that will entertain your children and keep them moving at the same time. The Fisher Price Smart Cycle is a good toy for your child ages 3-5. It is a stationary bike, a learning center and an arcade game all in one. You can get several interactive games to go along with it including, of course, our Elmo.
