Healthy lifestyle habits are the backbone of an active and disease-free body. The need for healthy lifestyle habits is at an all-time high due to the lifestyle changes brought about by modern-day living and restricted outdoor movement due to pandemic.
Here are some ways in which healthy lifestyle choices affect children and why they need to adopt them:
- Maintain Healthy Weight: Being conscious of lifestyle habits contribute towards maintaining healthy weight as kids are careful about the kind and quantity of food they ingest. Healthy food choices include fruits and vegetables, whole grains, milk, meats, fish, poultry, nuts, eggs, etc. as opposed to unhealthy ones like fried foods, buttery foods, sweet foods and more.
- Physical Benefits: Being active offers a number of physical benefits to the body such as better lung and heart strength, more flexibility and endurance, protection from diseases, etc. Some forms of physical activity that can be adopted for a healthy lifestyle are walking, running, jogging, swimming, stretching, yoga, Pilates, etc.
- Mind Health: Lifestyle choices directly impact the state of mind and the emotions ensuing from it. A happy mind more often than not resides in a happy and healthy body. Eating well, working out, drinking enough water and sleeping well affect our mood and keep psychological conditions like depression and anxiety at bay.
- Stress Management: Those who adopt healthy lifestyle habits have better capacity to cope with life and work stressors. They are likely to make healthy social connections with others and are better equipped to handle stressful situations with tools like exercise, deep breathing, meditation, yoga and so on. They experience less mental decline and have stronger immune systems.
- More Energy: Good nutrition, enough rest and physical activity increase the body’s overall health and energy levels. One feels active, light and less lethargic as there are fewer pains, aches and higher energy levels. Diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, etc. are also kept at bay.
- Save Money: A healthy lifestyle is much cheaper than an unhealthy one in the long run as one spends less on unhealthy foods and drinks and also prevents diseases caused by the same. This translates into fewer expenses on medicines and treatments for physical and emotional health issues like obesity, depression, eating disorders and so on.
- Good For The Environment: An intrinsic part of a healthy lifestyle is making good food choices i.e. opting for organic and unprocessed foods. Eating unprocessed foods reduces greenhouse gas emissions, increases biodiversity, reduces water scarcity and prevents deforestation.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas organize an array of after-school activities for promoting healthy lifestyle among kids in Killeen, TX. To know more about need for healthy lifestyle choices, visit 703 N. 8th Street, Killeen, TX - 76541. You can also call at (254) 699 – 5808.
After-school club activities are important for the overall development of students. They offer opportunities for socializing, taking risks, making decisions, applying logic, exercising team work and more. There are various types of after-school activities that students can engage in depending on their liking and area of interest. Most of these activities even aid in improving their academic performance in addition to polishing up other aspects of their personalities.
Following is a list of various types of after-school activities that students can engage in:
- Career Centric Activities: Students are encouraged to explore their skills and interests and develop them via interactive and voluntary activities. The programs consist of job shadowing, mentoring and training opportunities.
- College Readiness Clubs: Youngsters are prepared for high school graduation, post secondary education and for careers. They are taught to make short and long-term goals and are also taken for college tours.
- STEM Activities: Stress is laid upon understanding the theory and connections of scientific themes. The activities comprise of Engineering Design, Science of Sports, Food Chemistry, Energy and Electricity.
- Photography: Various forms of photography are taught to students e.g. digital, alternative process, black and white and color photography. Local and regional photography contests are held for categories like fashion and style, filters, editing and more.
- Financial Literacy: These activities aim to help students learn how to create budgets, financial management, saving, investing and more. The skills learnt in such clubs help youngsters make sound financial decisions as adults.
- Fine Arts: The focus is on recognizing and developing skills such as painting, printmaking, drawing, mixed media, sculpturing, collage making and so on. Usually select works of participants are displayed at the National Fine Arts Exhibit and other national events.
- Study Assistance: Students have access to homework assistance, learning activities, tutoring and more. They are encouraged to become self-directed learners over time and propelled to complete their assignments on time.
- Brain Games Clubs: These clubs consist of modules whereby students are encouraged to brush up their Math and reading skills with the help of creative expression, projects, discovery, group work and more. A project-based learning approach with theme-based fun activities is used to develop higher-order thinking skills.
- Social Service Clubs: These clubs help the youth discover their innate gifts and use the same for the welfare of the society and for personal development. Stress is laid upon interpersonal skills, community responsibility and work ethics through service and volunteer projects.
- Other Clubs/Activities: Character development clubs, teen clubs, league sports and fitness programs, discussion clubs, personality development clubs, skills mastery and resilience training, self esteem enhancement programs, leadership programs and more.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas organize an array of after-school activities for kids in Killeen, TX. To know more about types of after-school activities, visit 703 N. 8th Street, Killeen, TX - 76541. You can also call at (254) 699 – 5808.
Things learnt at an early age tend to stick with us for a life time; thus the emphasis on incorporating healthy lifestyle habits at a young age. Children are highly receptive to the messages they get from adults in their lives. Over time, habits and actions take a seat in the subconscious minds, making them hard to break. So, the implications of lessons regarding healthy lifestyle should be implemented at an early age.
Healthy lifestyle habits should be promoted at an early age due to the following reasons:
- Solid Foundation For Life: Beginning early lays the foundation for life-long habits that are easier to sustain. Children, who are physically active, eat healthy food and snacks and are well-rested keep up with the same habits as adults and find it easier to adopt them under all circumstances.
- Prevents Obesity: Making kids conscious of how different eating and lifestyle patterns impact their lives, carves a path for a life free of weight issues. If these habits can be made second-nature, they will never have to struggle with being overweight and dealing with the health implications thereof.
- Prevents Illnesses: Lifestyle diseases like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart ailments, diabetes and the like can be kept at bay during adulthood if healthy lifestyle habits are inculcated early in life. Being conscious of food and activity choices as a child forms the perfect base for a healthy body as an adult.
- Increases Confidence: A child who eats well, is physically active and sleeps well has higher chances of growing into a confident individual. The child enjoys high self-esteem, performs well academically, socially and emotionally. Such kids have a lower tendency of seeking attention and validation from others as they are sure of themselves and their decisions.
- Healthy Choices: Steering your child’s preferences for food towards the healthier side teaches them an important skill of making the right choice when it comes to what they ingest. At a very young age, a child learns the value of making healthy eating choices and the negative effects of junk food; this prevents cravings for junk food as he grows.
- Academic Success: Kids who are physically active are more likely to attend school regularly and perform better in studies. They also have superior motor coordination as compared to their sedentary peers. They have higher concentration levels, better memory, faster grasping power and more. Such kids are also less prone to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety as they grow.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas offer healthy lifestyle programs for kids in Killeen, TX. To know more about reasons to promote healthy lifestyle at an early age, visit 703 N. 8th Street, Killeen, TX - 76541. You can also call at (254) 699 – 5808.
Mental growth of kids involves dealing with emotional and social aspects of their personalities. To facilitate mental growth, it may be helpful to engage kids in activities aimed at the same. Such activities help kids regulate their emotions and improve social skills while having fun at the same time.
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing activities for mental growth of kids:
- Fun: The activity should be one that is full of fun in order to keep a child interested and engaged. For example, guessing games, fun rhymes, water activities, reading themed books, drawing, painting and more.
- Realistic: When making a choice of mental activities for your child, keep your goals realistic. The activity chosen should be in tandem with your child’s abilities in order to get best results. The best way to gauge whether an activity is realistic for your child is to pick one that is age appropriate.
- Instructive: Even though the aim of these activities is to encourage children to be independent, an activity should send a clear message of not crossing certain boundaries of behavior. A child should be able to understand that every action will have a consequence.
- Effective Praise: To get the most out of an activity aimed at mental growth, it is important to praise every little progress a child makes. This encourages the child to expand his horizons even if it calls for taking some risks.
- Safety: Even though it is completely okay and normal for your child to feel scared of engaging in some activities, it is important to ensure that the activities chosen are safe and undertaken in a secure environment. Look out for signs of fear like nervous mannerisms, change in sleeping and eating patterns, etc., as these may be indicative of a need to change the activity.
- Memory And Concentration: For a mental health activity to be effective, choose one that aims at improving your child’s memory and concentration levels. Examples of such activities are games like picture bingo, brain boxes, number string, etc. Such games help a child strengthen his retrievable memory and enhance auditory memory.
- Active learning: Look for activities that promote active learning as opposed to passive learning activities. Active leaning activities engage and challenge a child’s capacity to think and learn with the help of both imaginary and real life scenarios. Such activities should consist of investigative, purposeful, pre-planned and some spontaneous activities. The key is to choose an activity that engages both mind and body.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas offer a variety of after-school activities to improve the mental growth of kids in Killeen, TX. To know more about how to choose right activities for mental growth of kids, visit 703 N. 8th Street, Killeen, TX - 76541. You can also call at (254) 699 – 5808.
Nutrition, physical activity, less screen time and good sleep are the pillars of a healthy lifestyle. Implementing each of these in the daily life of children can bring about a positive shift in their academic performance. As per a study published in “International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health”, (Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(1), 243), a direct link has been established between lifestyle changes and an upward trend in cognitive control and academic performance in high school students.
Let us further elaborate this by looking at the ways in which a healthy lifestyle impacts the academic performance of kids:
- Brain Function: The brains of children who eat a balanced diet comprising of all essential nutrients are likely to perform to a higher capacity. Deficiencies in iron, zinc, vitamin B, C, A, calcium, folate, iodine and other vitamins or minerals lead to lower dopamine transmission in kids, impaired mental concentration and inhibited cognitive capabilities.
- Behavior: Children with a healthy lifestyle are willing to learn and have higher attendance at school. Malnutrition, high sugar consumption, junk food and other poor habits breed behavior problems in kids that affect their willingness to go to school and learn. For kids to exhibit their best behavior they should sleep on time, be physically active, and eat required amounts of protein, fat, complex carbohydrates and fiber.
- Physical Activity: Children who are physically active at school and at home have higher chances of performing well in academics as compared to their peers with sluggish lifestyles. Active students usually have better memory and concentration, lower dropout rates and less disciplinary issues, which result in better academic performance.
- Sleep: Consistent sound sleep is critical to a child’s academic performance. Sleep disturbances and inconsistencies affect student’s mood and well-being. Students thrive academically when their brains are well rested; they have better concentration, more retention/grasping power and higher energy levels throughout the day.
- Screen Time: Limited screen time is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle these days; its benefits are better sleep, lower BMI and less aggression. These benefits are directly linked to better academic performance and completion of homework. As per the latest recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), screen time of children aged 2 to 5 years should be limited to one hour per day and consistent limits should be set for older kids (6 and up).
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas offer a variety of programs to help kids in maintain a healthy lifestyle. The programs organized by the clubs include ‘ALL STARS’, ‘Passport to Manhood’, ‘SMART Girls’, ‘SMART Moves’, etc. The activities help kids in understanding the importance of a healthy lifestyle and improving physical activity. To know more about impacts of healthy lifestyle on academic performance of kids, visit 703 N. 8th Street, Killeen, TX – 76541. You can also call at (254) 699 – 5808.