To help children live healthy active lives, parents can:
- Be role models themselves by making healthy eating and daily physical activity the norm for their family.
- Create a home where healthy choices are available and encouraged.
- Make it fun – find ways to engage your children in cooking healthy meals together, creating a rainbow shopping list to find colorful fruits and vegetables, taking walks to go on scavenger hunts in the neighborhood, planting a family garden, playing games together.
In addition to incorporating the 5 2 1 0 rules, families can make small changes in their daily routines to help everyone lead healthier active lives. Try the following:
- Eat breakfast every day.
- Eat low-fat dairy products like yogurt, milk, and cheese.
- Regularly eat meals together as a family.
- Limit fast food, take out food, and eating out at restaurants.
- Prepare foods at home as a family.
- Eat a diet rich in calcium.
- Eat a high fiber diet.
Help your children form healthy habits now. Healthy active children are more likely to be healthy active adults.