8 Genius Ideas To Make Sure Your Kids Are Physically Fit

Video : 8 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Be Physically Fit & Healthy

So, how can you ensure your children are physically fit? We bring you a set of 8 assorted ideas that have been scientifically proven to help kids become and remain healthy – throughout their life!

1. Encourage Them To Spend Time Outdoors – But Be Safe!

The great outdoors are indispensable to physical fitness. Spending time in natural surroundings rejigs your child’s immunity, infuses new vigour, and also brings him peace. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult for parents to allow as the outdoors can also be dangerous. What if your kids wander off to dangerous places, or worse, are hurt or abducted? Well, the good news is that you can now quit worrying about this. Get your kids to wear the FindMe watch by ePurpleSky.com which has an inbuilt GPS tracker and a calling mechanism. You will know where your child is all the time, down to the exact building address. Problem solved!

Check out more parenting tips to keep kids safe from danger

2. Help Them Deal With Stress and Academic Issues

The biggest roadblock between kids and fitness is anxiety. They have a lot to deal with at this age – academic stress, peer pressure, making friends, understanding new emotions such as competitive spirit and jealousy, etc. This stress can often bog them down and interfere with their wellness. Observe them closely to delineate signs of stress and talk to them about it. Understanding and conversation can usually solve any problem when it’s Mamma who does it! ||

3. Show Them The Right Posture For Sitting, Standing and Walking

A lot of kids today develop poor posture from a young age. This eventually makes them prone to backbone disorders and other stress related ailments. If your child stoops while sitting or standing, and walks with a limp or doesn’t maintain a straight line, this can indicate early problems with physical fitness. Consult a paediatrician and help your child overcome this.

4. Make Sure They Walk Every Day

Walking is the best, and also the easiest, form of exercise. Your kids don’t need to chalk out time for this separately. If they take a rickshaw to the tuition centre a few blocks away, you can ask them to walk instead. Walking can also be a part of their play-time in the evening. The trick here is to make this an exciting challenge – something you can do with a pedometer! The FindMe Kids Watch, for example, records the number of steps they take and can be a really cool motivator!

5. Monitor Their BMI and Other Vital Statistics

Sometimes, even a seemingly fit child could be harbouring a physical fitness problem. To be sure, you need to monitor your child’s Body Mass Index (or BMI) and figures such as bone weight and height growth with time. Your doctor will be able to tell you if there is an underlying problem and suggest corrective measures like exercises or dietary supplements.

6. Include These Items in their Daily Diet

To be physically active, your children have to consume a wholesome, balanced diet. Make sure the food they consume every day has a fair share of all these nutrients – carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals and fibre. In the absence of adequate nutrition, your efforts at physical fitness cannot succeed! Check out this nutrition guide for kids to find out if your child has a nutritional deficiency and how you can fix it.

7. Participate in These Fun Exercises with Them

Who said exercise has to be boring and dull? For your kids to be fit, they need to exercise their growing muscles and bones. This also improves their hand eye coordination and, if they exercise with a group, their social skills. Make exercises like swimming, skipping, gym-bars and running a daily routine for both you and your kids. We foresee a lot of bonding too!

8. Keep Them Away from Electronic Gadgets

Finally, remember this – spending too much time fiddling with gadgets or staring into screens has been proven to weaken kids’ eyesight and lead to obesity and attention-deficit disorders. If you want your children to have an active lifestyle, limit their screen time to a maximum of an hour or two everyday – and this includes everything from the mobile phone to the television!

Before you start working toward any of the above, keep in mind that you are your child’s role model. For maximum effect, you need to incorporate these pointers in your daily life as well and the kids will follow suit. Come on moms, it’s time to get fitter by the minute!