Whether you’re a first time stepdad to your partner’s baby, or you live in a blended family with your own teenagers, there is a lot you can do to help your children feel great and develop healthy lifestyle habits that stay with them for life.
Here are some top healthy lifestyle tips you can try with all your kids:
Foods they Enjoy Eating
Help your kids discover what foods they like eating. Ask your stepchild what they like to eat. This is a great way to encourage the kids to feel comfortable talking with you. It will also help you get to know them better, and it gets them thinking about what tastes good and why.
If they are not sure what they like, take them to the store and get them to pick out some things to try and you might even be able to show them how to fix something with it, encouraging cooking skills at the same time. It’s also an ideal way to explain food facts to them about what is good and bad, portion size, and food choices.
Breakfast
Make sure they have breakfast. While life can be hectic and mornings are tough for everyone in the family, breakfast is the best meal of the day. It helps your kids to be more alert in school and gives them energy to make better
food choices throughout the day. While your stepkids may not be morning people, you can still put some great food in front of them like pancakes, fruit and yogurt, or a breakfast burrito that satisfies and tops up their energy levels.
Multivitamin
A daily multivitamin is a great way to ensure they meet all their daily nutritional requirements even when you are not with them throughout the day and cannot control all their food choices. While they may not want to take one at first, there are great new multivitamins for kids and teens that do not taste bad. Also, if you and your wife make it a daily habit to take a multivitamin in the morning, they have a great and healthy lifestyle model to emulate.
Make Healthy Meals
While they may think they do not like vegetables or fruits and appear to be fussy eaters, just keep introducing different healthy meals each day for them to try. Like everything they eat, it is just about what they become accustomed to. You may initially get a lot of protest and conflict, but don’t give up.
Patience will help transform their eating habits. You can make it fun. If your stepchildren are really young, you can consider making fun shapes and designs with the food. If you have teens, you may need some different strategies to tempt them into healthy food but they will come around.
Why not try introducing them to new foods by visiting different restaurants around your city? Opt for restaurants that cater for sharing dishes, such as Spanish Tapas, Mexican Street Food or buffet style Indian and Chinese restaurants. Allow your teen to pick their favorite bites, but encourage them to try just one new thing!
Get Active With Them
A healthy lifestyle is just another one of life’s lessons you can give your kids – and spending time outside of the house and engaging in outdoor activities has fantastic benefits for both our minds and bodies. PLUS fun in the sun can also help encourage family bonding (especially if you’re a new stepdad!)
Ask the children what they like to do and then plan time with them one-on-one. Whether it is a bike ride or game of basketball, just get out there and enjoy the time with them.
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About the Author
Carly Wood is writing on behalf of Nature’s Best – a company that provides health supplements and multivitamin tablets to families all over the world. When not writing, Carly enjoys walking her two dogs and training for her first 5K run.
