Family Fitness

Resolve to Get Your Kids Moving

by Ann Douglas

Telling your kids that fitness is important is not enough - you need to show them. Not the type to work out? Don't throw in the towel just yet! Ann Douglas, author of The Unofficial Guide to Having A Baby and The Unofficial Guide to Childcare, shares fun ways to get your family moving.

Get active
You've bought your kids toboggans, hockey sticks, and cross-country skis. You've signed them up for indoor soccer, swimming lessons, and gymnastics classes. You've told them all about the benefits of physical fitness. In fact, you've done everything possible to encourage your kids to put down the TV remote and get physically active. Or have you?

Most fitness experts agree that there's a world of difference between telling kids about the benefits of being physically active and showing them that fitness is a priority in your own life. If you're not physically active yourself, your words are likely to lose their impact. Bottom line? You have to be prepared to walk the talk.

The Unofficial Guide to Childcare

Getting started
You don't have to sign your kids up for boot camp in order to do your parental duty, however. In fact, that's one sure way to doom your family fitness program to failure! A far better approach is to come up with a list of different fitness activities that your family could enjoy together and to find ways to work fitness into your schedules on a regular basis. (The experts agree that you should be exercising for a minimum of 20 minutes at a time at least three times each week.)

Here are some tips on becoming a more active family:

Make it fun.
As with anything else in life, variety is the key to making your family fitness program enjoyable. Exercising to the same Tae Bo tape day after day isn't likely to hold an eight year old's attention, but weekly trips to the local swimming pool, Rollerblading® arena, and indoor baseball diamond likely will.

Head for the park.
What do you get when you combine a park and a van full of people? A terrific workout, that's what! Who says fitness has to be boring or super-serious? Throw around a frisbee (Yes, even in January!) Play a game of tag. As long as you're moving your bodies vigorously enough to get your hearts beating faster, you're exercising.

Join a club.
Think about joining a volkssport club. Volkssport clubs are walking clubs designed to be enjoyed by people of all ages, explains Liz Neporent, co-author of Fitness for Dummies. "They are a great way to meet other families -- ­something that adds to the fun of being active."

Go for a walk indoors.
Don't skip your walk just because the weather's bad outside. Take your family fitness program indoors! You can either walk around your local mall or head for some spot that's a little more inspiring: Even strolling through a museum can be a fitness activity, according to Neporent. It doesn't matter what you're doing while you're walking, as long as you're moving quickly enough to get some benefits out of your workout.

Hit the pool.
Few exercises will give you as good a workout as swimming -- and you don't just have to swim lengths. Jyl Steinback--author of The Fat Free Cookbook From Around the World and the mother of two children, ages 13 and 5, says that water adds a dimension of fun to a workout that can't be found on dry land: "We play water volleyball, underwater tag, basketball, and we have swimming races."

While you may find it difficult to schedule time for family fitness initially, it won't be long before that Saturday morning trip to the swimming pool or that Tuesday evening walk around the block becames second nature. And that, according to the experts, is when you'll really begin to reap the benefits of your family's commitment to healthier living, both body and soul.

What makes for an ideal family fitness activity?
Wondering what makes for a great family fitness activity? Here are a few things to look for:

• An activity that will appeal to both children and adults: Swimming, cross-country skiing, walking, biking, and Rollerblading® are activities that appeal to both young and old. They're a better bet than activities that are more suited to members of one age group, but not the other. Remember, the name of the game is to choose an activity that each member of the family can enjoy together, regardless of age, fitness level, or ability.
• An activity that's convenient to do: The easier you make it for everyone to exercise, the more likely you are to make the effort. It's one thing to get a family membership at the swimming pool down the street; it's quite another to purchase one at the pool across town. Be honest with yourself: how often are you going to want to pile everyone into the van to make that trek to the pool? Probably not often enough to make that pool membership worthwhile.
• An activity that's budget-friendly: There are already enough demands on your pay check. Why put more pressure on your budget when there are so many inexpensive -- Even free! --ways to stay fit? That's not to say that you shouldn't be prepared to invest some money in your family's fitness activities. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that you have to spend a fortune in order to reap the benefits of physical fitness.
• An activity that can be enjoyed in a family-friendly environment: There's no point purchasing a family membership at your local gym if children aren't particularly welcome there. Remember: There can be a world of difference between what the fitness facility's brochure says and how the staff members and other clients actually feel about having children at the gym.

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Links, information and more for you

Kids and Exercise
The Unofficial Guide to Childcare
The Vegetarian Child
Directory of health articles
Directory of all articles

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About the author: Ann Douglas is the author of The Unofficial Guide to Having A Baby (IDG Books, 1999) and The Unofficial Guide to Childcare (IDG Books, 1998). A frequent contributor to GeoParent, Ann and her husband Neil have four children under the age of ten.