How to Be Healthy as a Family

Today I am thinking about family. If you have a spouse and/or children like I do, life can get pretty busy. How do you make sure your family eats healthy meals during the week and have healthy relationships with one another?

Healthy meals are not only difficult to make, but expensive. I even see that schools are starting to demand that parents send their children to school with healthy lunches. In my opinion, the most difficult thing about making healthy meals is trying to find new and different meals to eat. Who wants to eat the same meals every single week?

My blog on making meals on a budget had some tips about making kids lunches and family-sized meals, but didn't really explain how to be healthy as a family. Being healthy as a family is more then just making nutritious meals to eat.

There are six simple steps your family can take to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The full article is on heart.org but I am going to tell you the six steps.

Step 1: Identify free times for activity.
Step 2: Make time to plan a weekly menu, go shopping and prep your meals.
Step 3: Simplify your family's schedule.
Step 4: Take baby steps, not giant leaps.
Step 5: Ask everyone in the family to do their part.
Step 6: Live by example.

I just so happened to find another article that gives examples of these steps. There is a lot of good information in this article that I will start using in my family. This article even gives you a chart so you can determine how active you are.  I would definitely take a look if I were you!

There are certain regular habits you can maintain on a regular basis to be a healthy family. For both the children and guardians, you can make sure everyone gets at least 20 minutes of exercise per day. For just the children, you can tell them bedtime stories before bed. For just the parents, you can aim to have sex at least twice a week. Having healthy relationships is just as important as eating healthy.

Be a healthy family!