Personal Care: Maintaining Family Health

Family health is a combination of modeled personal care and family members supporting each other at various levels. For the adults modeling and encouragement are the primary responsibilities. For children it's learning and developing healthy life habits that will be a part of their lives wherever life may lead. Parental Modeling Includes:

Planning and Providing Healthy Meals

Numerous studies have proven that a child without breakfast will have trouble learning in the early part of the day. Adults that skip breakfast will not be able to perform at peak levels at work. Others studies have shown that if a person does not eat breakfast or eats one loaded with sugar and "empty" carbohydrates, found in doughnuts rather than proteins, such as eggs will result in afternoon over-eating, which is one of the main contributors to obesity.

By teaching children the basic food groups and getting them involved in the daily meal preparation will provide a solid foundation. Throughout the day, monitoring how everyone eats, especially during snack times is important to maintain over all nutritional body strength.

Scheduling Bed Times

Don't think this only applies to children. Many adults are sleep deprived due to life stress, over work or general disinterest in sleep. The consequence of this deprivation varies from insomnia, weight gain, sluggish work performance, mental sluggishness and most importantly, a weakened immune system.

Teaching Personal Hygiene

It is not enough to throw a toothbrush and toothpaste at a child after a few minutes of instruction. Early development requires supervised activities so the proper levels of brushing and flossing can become habit. When it comes to teeth brushing, children are prone to cutting corners on how long they brush or may not be brushing at all. This is also true with hand washing and bathing. Many viral illnesses will be diverted from the home if proper hygiene becomes second nature to every one in the household.

Take advantage of all the anti-bacterial products on the market today.

Supporting Outside Sports Activities

A balance is needed here as well. Too many activities and the child becomes unnecessarily physically and mentally fatigued which can cause behavior and learning problems. One or at the most two organized sports per week is more than enough for a school age child to get the social and physical benefits from the program. Don't use the activity as a baby-sitting service. Show enthusiasm for the child's efforts by attending their games and staying for some practices.

On the off days, take family walks, go to the park, walk the mall, throw a ball, whatever you do as a family, make an active activity.

Organizing Weekly Chores

A clean home is a healthy home, and there is no reason it should be delegated just to the adults. Every Saturday could be a "Cleaning Day" with children getting involved in removing and replacing sheets, cleaning the bathroom or whatever chore is age appropriate. Maintaining family health is about living in a sanitary and safe environment. Teach this to children today and they will be socially more attractive as adults. Few enjoy living with a slob.