Most of us are always striving to take better care of our health and the health of our children. Summer is a great time to make family health a priority. Pursuing better health can be a family affair! Family bike rides, hiking, swimming, the possibilities are endless. Exercise is one component to being healthy, the other is better eating. Modeling healthy eating is so important and a great way to model healthy eating is to eat meals together. All the experts agree about the importance of the family having dinner together. Family dinners are a win/win. We can prepare and eat a healthy meal, and spend time together. Family meals make it easy to reconnect after long, busy days. Family Meal Time Kids can get involved in helping to prepare meals, and often they are more likely to try something new if they have been involved in helping to prepare the dish. Some families have a tradition of trying a new fruit or vegetable each week. Summer is a fantastic time to try lots of different fresh fruits and vegetables. Visit a local Farmer’s Market or Farm Stand with your children and let them help you pick out some different items. We have a dinner time tradition in our home called “favorite part”. My husband started it many years ago. Every night at dinner we go around the table and tell our favorite part of the day. Most days it’s something very simple, going on a bike ride, going to the store etc. We try to make the kids expand a bit and say something more than just “playing outside”, but it’s something we can doing fairly quickly and each person gets time to share about their day. It almost always sparks further conversation and allows all of us to catch up. Through exercise and healthy eating, we are teaching our children that we are striving to be good stewards of the body God has entrusted us with. We need to take good care of our body, it’s the only one we have! Jen blogs at Forever, For Always, No Matter What. She has one amazing husband and six eclectic kids. Stop in for a visit as she blogs about their Catholic faith, homeschooling and adoption, all while trying to fit in exercise and healthy eating.
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