Raising a healthy child can be made easier when parents focus on giving their child or children the GIFT of Health.

There is a great deal of concern these days about preventing childhood obesity. The best way to prevent childhood obesity is to teach children how to make healthy, nutritious food choices and to be active each day.

Teaching a child how to be healthy for a lifetime is one of the most beneficial gifts a child can ever receive. A child who knows how to make healthy food choices is more likely to stay healthy and less likely to become obese.

The GIFT of Health focuses on four areas, Good Nutrition, Involving Others, Fitness & Fun and Teaching Health Choices.

Good Nutrition

The two main keys to remember when teaching children about good nutrition are to:

• Offer children a variety of nutritious foods to support their growth.
• Teach them how to make healthy food choices, learning how to pick nutrient dense foods.*

The basics of Good Nutrition involves:

• Eating a variety of healthy foods.
• Emphasizing whole grains, cereals, breads, other grain products, legumes (beans), vegetables and fruits.
• Choosing lower-fat dairy products, leaner meats, and foods prepared with little or no fat.
• Limiting empty calories from fatty and fried foods and those with excess sugars.

Involving Others

Whether it is with family or with friends, children benefit from doing thing with others. This is also a time that you can model good behavior and good choices. Make time to eat healthy meals together as a family. Get out and participate in some kind of activity with each other.

Remember what they say.

The family that plays together stays together…but even more important stays healthier.

Fitness & Fun

In order to stay healthy and well, children should be getting at least 60 minutes of activity on most days. Being physically active helps establish a valuable foundation for a healthy life and a healthy child.

Parents, Grandparents and other Caregivers can also benefit by getting up, getting out and moving. There are many ways that you can get the family moving.

Simple movements like walking, hiking or bicycling are a good way to get started. Fun movements like dancing, bouncing, inline skating or rollerblading are ways to be active and laugh a lot. During the winter think of skiing, ice skating or snow shoeing and during the summer swimming, canoeing and kayaking. Group activities like tennis, racquetball, volleyball, basketball or soccer are another option or consider take a class together and learning dance, yoga or martial arts.

Teaching Healthy Choices

According to Whitney and Rolfes in their textbook, Understanding Nutrition, 70 - 80% of a person’s life expectancy depends on health-related behaviors or the lifestyle choices a person makes over a lifetime.

Teaching your child to emphasize healthy positive lifestyle choices and deemphasize poor lifestyle choices can help them stay healthier.

• The good lifestyle choices to emphasize when teaching children include eating healthy foods, being active daily, getting enough sleep and learning how to handle stress.
• The poor lifestyle choices to de-emphasize when teaching children include limiting high fat foods, watching out not to eat too many empty calories from sugars and fats, preventing inactivity and avoiding smoking, tobacco, drug or alcohol use.

Give Your Child the GIFT of Health

Remember that raising a healthy child or healthy children can be simple when you focus on giving your child the GIFT of Health.

• Good Nutrition
• Involving Others
• Fitness & Fun
• Teaching Health Choices

* Nutrient dense foods are foods with the most nutrients (Whole Grains, Vitamins, Minerals, Fiber) per serving.

© 2008 Kirsti A. Dyer MD, MS, CWS.