Fitness for the Whole Family

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Many families nowadays don’t do enough to keep fit, be it down to clashing schedules, not being able to find the time or because they simply can’t be bothered. However, for both adults and children alike it is extremely important to stay fit and healthy. Not only does it benefit your mind and body, but spending time together with your family members will also help to strengthen relationships with each other.

Find the time

Trying to keep your family fit relies heavily upon spending time together to do things such as exercise or cook a healthy meal, especially in the fast-paced society we live in. Although most families will have weekends free to spend together, or evenings in the week they don’t utilize this time sufficiently, and often spend it apart as opposed to doing a family activity. Sit down with the rest of your family, find a time when you are all free and make this your ‘family time’. This time should be used for exercise with the whole family, bringing us onto our second paragraph.

Exercise

Exercise is the most important factor when it comes to getting fit, but it doesn’t have to be the grueling hard work that it’s made out to be! Exercise with your whole family could be a number of activities, there is bound to be something that everyone can enjoy whilst keeping fit.

For example, going out for a walk somewhere new, maybe at a nature park, is a great way to do exercise that isn’t too strenuous whilst bonding with your family. A day out to the swimming pool is also a lot of fun and is perfect for all ages.

There’s also many sports you can do at home to help keep fit and healthy, such as a game of football, tennis or even going on a trampoline! The point is that the exercise doesn’t have to seem like exercise, it can be seen more as a fun activity for everyone to do together. If you’d rather go to a gym, you can now buy family passes from a lot of leisure centers, so Mum and Dad can go in the gym whilst the kids go swimming or play a game of basketball.

Signing your children up to sports clubs and teams is also a great way to help them get fit, as well as giving them an opportunity to be independent and meet new friends. This is a great self-esteem booster that will hopefully instil a love of exercise into your child for life!

Having a healthy diet

Although many kids think that the 5 food groups are chips, chicken nuggets, burgers, pizza and cake it can be easier than you think to get children to eat healthily. If your family are particularly fussy eaters, it may serve you well to find out one of their favorite meals (healthy ones of course!) that you can cook often to ensure they get a properly healthy meal regularly.

The 5 food groups you need to follow when cooking are:

  • Fruit and Vegetables – These should make up for a third of your daily diet, if not that much then at least 5 portions a day
  • Starchy Carbohydrates – Another third of your diet, these include bread, rice, potatoes and pasta
  • Dairy Products – Although these are high in saturated fat they also have a high percentage of Calcium, making them very important in a child’s diet
  • Meat, Fish and Eggs – These all supply protein, which is essential for growth and repair, particularly important for children!
  • Sugary Foods – These make up for the smallest part of your diet, they should only be eaten as a treat every so often!

It can often be difficult to incorporate all of these into your diet, so a helpful tool is a meal planner. You can easily draw these up yourself at home, just draw a weekly calendar then at the start of each week (maybe Sunday evening?) sit down and choose 7 meals for the next week that you’re going to cook.

Healthy eating cookbooks come in handy here, as they’re brilliant to flick through for inspiration for healthy meals. Once you have chosen, write them down onto the meal planner and stick it up in the kitchen. This also eradicates the ‘Oh no, what am I going to cook for dinner?’ panic that often sets in an hour before dinner time.

Obviously these two are the very basics of keeping your family fit, but once you practice these regularly you should notice a difference!

This article was written by Sarah Hickens on behalf of Trampoline Warehouse. Trampoline Warehouse specialize in professional trampolines Australia for all ages. Sarah is an active parent with a young son who she keeps entertained through a variety of activities and also a seasoned blogger who like to share her ideas and experiences.

18 Comments

  1. I agree that many families aren’t active enough. Nowadays too many people consider sitting around the TV together quality time.

  2. We all have such busy lives that it is difficult to get in some family exercise. Summer is a good time because the weather is good so we going for a bike ride in the evenings. Sadly winter we tend to hibernate most evenings but we do get in some skating and snowshoeing on the weekends.

  3. I agree and i want to start doing this too with my family. I recently had a baby, almost 2 months ago and during my pregnancy, hubby and i stopped exercising and due to my cravings, started eating unhealthy food more often so now i want to start working out and dieting with him so that we can have that time for us plus we are doing it to be better parents to our son as well 🙂

  4. Making Ffitness a family affair is a good way to start the habit for your children

  5. We try as a family to get outdoors and active as much as possible. I think it’s important to do these things with your kids so they will continue as they get older.

  6. Good points to remember. Now that the weather is nice we hope to get out and about together more often.

  7. I have done much better about making our meals healthier, but I definitely need to get more active with the boys.

  8. Fitness for the whole family is so important

  9. My family is more active the last few months than ever, especially the kids. My two oldest daughters are finally in sports and not sitting at home everyday looking for something to do.

  10. Fitness is so important for the entire family.

  11. It is so important to have fitness fun as a family!

  12. My son has developed a healthy exercise regime, but my husband is hard to get on board.

  13. Hi Guys,

    This post popped up in my Google Alerts today, and thought I would drop a quick message.

    Me and my wife have three young children and have found that our fitness levels dropped quite dramatically when they were babies!! It was a mixture of time, tiredness and actually getting out to places with them.

    Now they are getting older and can walk, ride bikes, go swimming we are finding we can “as a family” be more active…

    I have also noticed the UK health and fitness industry is now really focusing on families and I think this is a good thing…

    Kind Regards

    James AKA The Fitness Blogger

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