Keeping Families Healthy
Keeping Families Healthy
The fall season is here! It’s a great time for families to create a fresh start to building and maintaining a healthy family home.
As an organization dedicated to healthy living, the Y has developed five pillars that support a healthy family home: eat healthy, play every day, get together, go outside and sleep well. Focusing on these key areas is sure to help even the busiest family live healthier.
Small steps can lead to big changes. Here are a few tips to help your family get started on building a healthier family home this fall:
Choose Drinks With Care 
A simple way to improve your family’s overall health is to adjust your approach to beverages. The largest source of added sugar in children’s diets isn’t candy or cookies. It’s drinks sweetened with sugar like soda, sports drinks and juices. Try cutting out drinks with added sugar and focus on adding more water, low fat milk and 100% fruit juice into your family’s diet. Be sure to check the labels on the popular juice boxes that are often the beverage of choice in school lunch boxes. Sometimes sugar is listed as sucrose, high fructose corn syrup or fruit juice from concentrate. Don’t be fooled – they are all just sugar!
Family Play for an Hour a Day
Playful movement is one of the keys to a healthy family home. It doesn’t matter what kind of activity you choose. As long as you keep your arms and legs moving, it’s good for you! Fall is a great time for evening walks, going hiking, shooting hoops and bicycling. To get 60 minutes of moderate activity throughout your day, just add 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there. It all adds up and it counts.
Take Time to Get Together
For many of today’s activity-focused families, it may come as a surprise that spending regular quality time together as a family is one of the best ways to improve your family’s health and well-being. Try to find time every day when your entire family has an opportunity to connect and share. Mealtime is a perfect time to catch up.
Many annual Y events such as Healthy Kids Day, Family Fun Fest, Health Series seminars and more provide opportunities for kids and their families to stay active and healthy together.
Join us for these upcoming health events at the Y:
- Fall Health Series – free health seminars for all ages
- Kids in the Kitchen – Saturday, October 6
- Family Fun Fest – Saturday, October 20 at Camp Arrowhead
- Halloween at the Y – Friday, October 26 at Family Health & Wellness Center
How Healthy is Your Home?
The Y has designed a 10-question quiz to assess how your family is doing with each of the five pillars of a healthy home: eat healthy, play every day, get together, go outside and sleep well.
Click here to take the quiz online.
After taking the quiz, you’ll see a simple bar graph that illustrates how your family is doing with some of the key health habits under each pillar. You can use this to help determine where your family could begin setting goals to improve your family’s health and well-being.
View YMCA healthy living tips & visit our Facebook page daily for ideas on how to build a healthier home!
Learn more about the Y’s affordable youth & family memberships with programs to keep all ages active.
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