5 Tips for Healthy Kids
5 Tips For Keeping Your Kids and Family Healthy
- A Better Understanding:
People do not get sick more often because there are more germs and bugs floating around. They get sick more often because they are LESS healthy and strong. Often this happens because their environment changes from season to season. If you simply understand that you have to encourage your kids to practice healthy habits, your kids will be healthier and happier year round.
We do not get sick from simply being exposed to germs, we get sick when we are too weak to fight them off. The key to staying healthy is having a healthy and strong immune system. Mainstream media, Walgreens, and most medical doctor’s offices, will do their best to convince you to “get your flu shot”, but vaccines and drugs provide artificial immunity at best. We are seeing their overuse can lead to weakened immune systems… the opposite of what you want for your kids. A message centered on things that proactively boost and strengthen your immune response is what you and your family need to hear and adopt!
- Get Plenty of Exercise:
In our modern world, with video games and iPads and big screen movies on demand, most kids do not get sufficient amounts of exercise. And that can get even worse when the weather makes it difficult to venture outside for long periods of time. However, nothing has been proven to be as immune-boosting and mood-boosting as GETTING YOUR KIDS MOVING!
The best form of exercise is what we term “functional fitness” – meaning that it offers a variety of different types of exercise (cardio, strength training, endurance, stretching, etc.), keeping your kids constantly motivated and excited, while keeping them fit, healthy, and strong. We strongly recommend you get your kids off the couch, and outdoors moving! Building a snowman or shoveling a sidewalk in winter and early spring. Going to the park to run around, or going hiking and go swimming in summer. Or just getting them in the habit of going for a brisk w
alk, no matter what time of year. Encouraging them to get outside and make a habit of healthy activities will make a big difference in their health, year round.
Buying screen time for video games or TV is a good method. So many hours of outside play for so many minutes inside on the computer or television or iPad. With many experts saying that sitting is as harmful as smoking to our long term health, getting up and out of the chair will not only boost our immune system and function, but long term benefits as well.
- Get Your Kids To Eat More Fruits and Veggies and Water:
You’ve heard this one a million times and you just can’t seem to get your kids to do it! Well, stop listening to their excuses and start making it a reality. You can visit your local Farmer’s market in season or just keep your house stocked with good fresh fruits and veggies. You can try one very easy option, by signing up for a food co-op or Bountiful Baskets that delivers healthy, organic produce to your door, making it EASY and CONVENIENT!
Committing to one box per of fruits and veggies per week ensures that you will have organic produce in your home on a regular basis, and supply your family with the highest quality of produce while saving money compared to buying it in the store. So you get more bang for your buck.
Other great options and tips include shopping at Natural Grocer’s, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. When out to eat ordering your kids a side of veggies or fruit instead of fries and potatoes. What about growing your own garden and getting the kids involved with the veggies so they have some ownership in what they are eating. Also linking up with local farmers or even grandma to get their produce.
Another way to ensure your kids consume all of the goodness you’re bringing home, is to use a Vitamix or similar blender. You simply buy fruits and veggies, put them in the blender, turn it on and blend them up, so your kids can have a fun and tasty drink! There are a many books available on juicing and smoothie recipe creations, buy one and mark some favorites and make this part of your family’s daily routine!
One last idea on keeping them healthy is to simply drink more water. Kids love the sodas and sugar drinks, but all that refined sugar will paralyze the immune system. It weakens the body to fight off any other issues you may come in contact with. By staying hydrated the body can eliminate and flush out the unwanted toxins and keep the immune system strong for when it is needed.
- Take a supplement:
Vitamin D3: The human body is incredible. It has the ability to transform sunlight into energy and Vitamin D. However, in Utah we see very little sunlight during the winter months. And even in the warmer months we still don’t get outside enough, especially in summer when it can get very hot. As a result of less exposure to sunlight, our bodies produce an insufficient amount of Vitamin D on our own. While some foods are now fortified with Vitamin D, it is simply not enough by itself. Vitamin D is crucial for immune support, and helps to fight off colds, flu and respiratory infections. It’s estimated that a full 80% of the population is deficient in Vitamin D. And the only way to address that is to get your kids outside more when you can, and give them proper supplementation when spending time outside is not possible.
Omega 3: The two components of Omega 3 are eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA, and docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA. The EPA part is helpful for the body to reduce inflammation. It is used in all our cell walls, so it helps with cellular communication and helps our body function more efficiently. If the body if fighting inflammation then the immune system may be compromised as well. The DHA is used in nerve and brain function. The better the nerves are working the better the whole system works since the nervous system is the master control system of the body.
Probiotic: You have likely heard that 80% of our immune system is in our gut. It is one of the fronts that help protect us from outside invaders. Let’s face the reality, kids put EVERYTHING in their mouth. So if there happen to be viruses or bacteria then they also go right in. Our gut is basically a turf war, good guys and bad guys. So if you want to keep the real estate of the GI looking like the good part of town and not the scary part of town, a good probiotic is helpful. The latest research published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport found that New Zealand athletes had about 40% fewer colds and gastrointestinal infections when they took a probiotic compared to when they took a placebo.
- Get Your Kids Regular Chiropractic Adjustments… Don’t Wait Until They’re “Sick”
Regular chiropractic care has been shown to boost immunity, improve DNA repair, improve mood, and much more! Not only that, by getting all those benefits and staying healthy through preventative or wellness-based adjustments, you’ll save tons of time and money!!!
Getting sick is very costly! Between visits to the doctor, pediatrician and pharmacy things add up quickly… not to mention the additional costs of time off work if you need to stay home with your child, and all the lost productivity there.
This point was well illustrated by a recent study of 70,000 Chicagoland chiropractic patients compared to patients under the care of a Medical Doctor. Those under the care of a Doctor of Chiropractic demonstrated decreases of 60.2% in-hospital admissions, 59.0% less hospital days, 62.0% less outpatient surgeries and procedures, and 83% decreased pharmaceutical costs.
Another study showed that compared to the non-chiropractic patients, kids getting adjusted had a 200%
STRONGER immune system than those who don’t! That takes us back to our original advice of doing things that BOOST your immune system. And chiropractic adjustments may be the best option out there for that! Kids (and adults) who get adjusted on a regular basis get far less colds, infections and bouts with the flu. And when they do, they get over them far faster than kids who don’t get chiropractic adjustments! This has been shown that by stimulating the Vagus nerve, (with neck adjustments) it will up regulate your immune fighting white blood cells by as much as 120%.
No one wants their family to get sick! And the drugs designed to treat sickness are often less than helpful, or actually dangerous, so don’t rely on them. Be proactive, and keep your kids healthy with these 5 simple tips for staying happy and healthy year round!