How to get Kids Involved and Excited About Healthy Choices

Being active is important for every generation and especially for young children. This will give them the building blocks to remaining active and healthy as an adult. Whilst we need to educate our children to be active and healthy, it is essential that we make it fun for them – they are much more likely to engage in a task that means they can have fun doing it.

Here are a couple of ways in which you can get your child started by helping them understand what making healthy choices is all about.

Make a Star Chart

Get each child to design their own star chart. Decorate the edge of the chart by them writing all the words they can think of that are associated with being healthy and strong, or this could be in an additional column at one side of the chart. Design the chart to look like a weekly planner with the days of the week down the side and have 5 columns across the page, in which they can put a star or tick every time they do some form of exercise. Then in the last column get them to draw a picture of their favourite fruit or vegetable that they have eaten that day.

This is a fantastic way to keep them motivated and on track and of course the benefit is that it will also help to boost physical health as well as mental health and let’s be honest even as adults we do love a good old tick chart!

Educational Stickers or Cards

Education is key to teaching children from an early age how healthy food is going to keep them strong and healthy. This way they have the knowledge to make the healthy choices themselves later in life.

A fun way of doing this is to gather any vegetables and fruit that you have onto a table or tray and then get some stickers or cards and on each one write one of the following:

Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin B, Vitamin K

The children then need to guess which fruit or vegetable has which vitamin in it by placing a sticker next to that item.

Here are some examples

Apples =Vitamin C

Carrots = Vitamin A

Broccoli = Vitamin K

Sweet Potato = Vitamin A

Tomatoes = Vitamin C

Peas = Vitamin B

Peppers = Vitamin C

Avocado = Vitamin E

Cucumber = Vitamin K

Strawberries = Vitamin C

Bananas = Vitamin B

Oranges = Vitamin C

Mango = Vitamin C

For an additional task they could then explain what the benefits of these vitamins are.

Vitamin A helps with eye health.

Vitamin B is good for energy.

Vitamin C boosts the immune sysyrem,

Vitamin E helps eyes, skin, and heart.

This is of course a small part of the key nutrients as the list can include all the other vitamins and minerals that are good for our health, but this is a good starting point and a fun way to generate an interest in health in an incredibly positive way.