For too many people, there comes an age when they just accept their physical condition as the hand they are dealt in life. Their dreams or hopes for a more vibrant physical self fall by the wayside, as they learn to settle. They settle for fewer options for activity and less energy for whatever they choose to do as well as come to accept all manner of ailments.

People allow ageism to permeate their own thoughts and influence their better judgment. The way this happens is usually a matter of both internal and external fears being voiced. “Do you expect to do that at your age” or “how can you manage that with kids?”

Sure, decades of physical inactivity can not be instantly undone by a positive attitude. Yet, gradually reclaiming the activities and opportunities you told yourself were no longer possible can progressively bring back good health and greater vitality. A proactive passion for good health, or for that matter, your household’s good health, means you do not have to settle for I’m too old, too fat, or too tired. People of all backgrounds break through these self-imposed limits every day.

Team sports are a great way for kids to get their daily activity requirement, but competitive sports aren’t for every child. Here are some ways to encourage “non-athletes” to get active.

• Kids can be embarrassed to participate in sports because they have the notion that they’re not good enough. If this is the problem, find time to practice together. This can help build confidence and prepare them for the next step — small group play with their peers.
• Some kids simply don’t like competing in sports. That’s fine since there are many other ways to be active. Examples include leisure swimming, cycling, dancing, skateboarding, yoga, and hiking. Explore areas of possible interest for your child by learning what goes on at the local YMCA, community sports fairs or park district programs.
• Never make exercise a punishment. Forcing your child to go out and play may create resistance. Try using physical activity to ease into something viewed as being even less desirable. For instance, make it a routine to allow for 30 minutes of biking before starting homework. Don’t be surprised if your child ends up begging for 10 more minutes outside!

“Fail to plan and you can plan to fail.”

Think of your plan as a road map and your goal as your destination. Without a plan and a specific goal, you are left without focus and can easily get lost or side-tracked. This happens all the time to people who, without much thought, join a gym or start running. They end up just doing whatever — no activity plan and no nutritional plan. Soon, they wonder why they are not making progress.

Having a plan lets you take specific action each day. There is no wondering or guessing — you just do it. A proper plan can provide the necessary structure that not only keeps you moving forward, it also helps develop good habits for activity and nutrition that will benefit you long after you have reached your goal.

“Believe you can or believe you can’t. Choose one and you’ll be exactly right.”

Once you have started on your plan, you need to believe wholeheartedly in what you are doing. It is important to stay focused and avoid overly-critical people. If you have to, don’t discuss your plan with people who say things like “you can’t do that” or “you’re wasting time and money”. Basically, do not let anyone negatively influence your success. When you have reached your goals, those same people will likely be asking for your advice.

Modern guidelines state that normal weight adults need at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise on four or more days of the week. Adults focused on weight loss need 60 minutes of moderate intensity exercise four or more days per week. The same 60 minute requirement applies to all children, regardless of their weight. However, in all cases, the required activity time can be divided into two or three parts in different times of the day.

Commonly referred to as the Consensus Public Health Recommendation, these guidelines are supported by the U.S. Surgeon General, USDA, Dept. of Health and Human Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Heart Association, National Institutes of Health, and American College of Sports Medicine.

Having said that, do not be discouraged by the amount of activity required. You can work up to the 30 or 60 minutes if you have been sedentary, pregnant, ill, injured or are significantly overweight. Furthermore, being active is not an all-or-nothing proposition. We need to simply accept the occasional lapse and just get back on track.

As an adult, you are probably well aware why you need to be active. However, you may not know to what extent obesity and sedentary living is affecting our youth. More than 60% of children do not exercise on a regular basis. A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study from 2006 found that daily physical education classes are offered in just 3.8% of elementary schools, 7.9% of middle schools, and 2.1% of high schools. It is little wonder that the CDC also finds at least 15% of American children and teens are now overweight — more than triple the number in 1970. These numbers have very serious implications:

• Children are being diagnosed at an alarming rate with Type 2 Diabetes — a disease previously associated exclusively with middle aged or senior adults.
• Obesity, now classified as an epidemic disease, holds more harm for today’s children than exposure to tobacco, drugs, and alcohol combined.
• Today’s kids have a shorter life expectancy than their parents — the first time ever in U.S. history.

Involving your kids in a health-promoting lifestyle should be a high priority for every caring parent. However if you want fit and healthy kids, you should at least be on the path to getting fit and healthy yourself. Many studies have shown that family environment is one of the strongest predictors of childhood obesity.

In 2006, a worldwide survey conducted by UK based Tesco Ltd. asked 3,500 children aged 7-16 their opinions on playing sports.

When finding out what motivates kids to play sports, perhaps not surprisingly, most children play first and foremost to have fun. Sociability was high on the list, setting “Make friends” as the #3 motivator.Keeping fit was the second most important factor in playing sports, but some cultural differences showed through. 83% of young Chinese do sports to stay healthy compared with just 43% in the US. Stress management turned out to be a significant motivator in playing sports, especially for teenagers. With increasingly difficult school work, social challenges, and the general pressure of the teen years, sports can be viewed by many to be the answer to stress. The figures went up dramatically for 15-16 year olds in most countries. Interestingly, considering current global obesity issues, losing weight was the motivation voted for least.

Slimming down is only one of the benefits overweight kids can gain from exercise. According to a recent study in the Journal of Obesity, an exercise program can help reduce potentially harmful snoring in children. Researchers put a group of 100 overweight children on a 13-week daily exercise program. At the end of the study, they found that the number of kids who frequently snored was reduced by roughly half.

Knowing that an unhealthy weight can develop sleep problems ranging from simple snoring to sleep apnea and chronic insomnia, one take-away from this study that we can use with household members of all ages is that regular physical activity can help make bedtime significantly more restful.

Assuming you are not simply sleep-deprived, the cause of your mid-afternoon slump is most likely eating too much saturated fat and/or too many carbohydrates. A meal that is high in carbohydrates, particularly processed carbohydrates (e.g. soda, sweets, pasta, white bread) quickly breaks down into glucose, causing your blood sugar to spike and give you a burst of energy. However, because your brain cannot handle so much sugar at once, it sends a signal to your pancreas to quickly release insulin. This rapidly drops your blood sugar below the levels your brain needs to function effectively, resulting in sluggishness.

The solution is to modify what you eat. You should first eliminate all saturated fats and processed carbohydrates. Also, never eat carbohydrates without including protein. As a rule, your lunch should include:

• a fist-sized portion of lean protein (e.g. chicken, turkey or salmon)
• a thumb sized serving of healthy fats/oils (e.g. extra virgin olive oil, avocado or raw nuts or seeds)
• no more than 1 serving of unprocessed carbohydrates (2 cups non-starchy vegetables, 1 cup fruit or 1 cup whole grains)

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, 72% of American’s calories are from sources that never existed in hunter-gatherer diets including refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, white flour, high fructose corn syrup, and shortening. Processed foods may be a basic reason why 1/3 of all cancer related deaths are nutrition related.

In 2000, Americans consumed on average 152 pounds of sugar or about 400 calories from sugar each day. That’s not too surprising when you consider a drink such as a 20 oz. Tropicana Twister contains 350 calories from sugar.

The typical American diet includes 63% more salt than what is recommended. This comes from processed foods, cooking and table salt. Only 10% of our intake comes from sodium found naturally in foods.

Were our bodies designed for this much sugar and salt? Or are people just not willing to acknowledge that modern food choices are main contributors to high blood pressure, stroke and cancer?

New muscle gained from a proper activity and nutrition plan can actually add body weight. So the bathroom scale does not necessarily make for a good measure of weight loss success. Monitoring your body composition is a better gauge, but it can get complicated. Using a measuring tape is a nice and simple tool for charting progress. However, for some people, the numbers can be more discouraging than motivating. So getting creative with your measurement methods can help you stick to your plan.

A spool of ribbon can make for no-stress measurements at home. Take the spool and use it to measure the circumference of your arms, waist, hips, thighs, and calves. After each measurement, cut the ribbon and label it with the body part measured. Once you have all your pieces of ribbon cut and labeled, store them away. After a month of following your activity and nutrition plan, take out the ribbons and re-measure yourself using the same length of ribbon you previously cut for that body part. Add a new mark on the ribbon at your new smaller size and date it. You will see from the marks that you have lost inches of fat fromall over your body, without ever having had to see potentially discouraging numbers the first time.

According to the 2006 Tesco Global Sport Report, swimming is the favorite sport in the world for children. Despite the global popularity of soccer, as far as kids’ participation in sports go, the “beautiful game” was surprisingly beaten out for the top position. Children almost unanimously voted swimming as their #1. It came out on top in every country aside for India, where cricket won.

Top Kids’ Sports

1. Swimming
2. Soccer
3. Cycling
4. Basketball
5. Track & Field

In 2006, a worldwide survey conducted by UK based Tesco Ltd. asked 3,500 children aged 7-16 their opinions on playing sports.

When the children of 10 nations were asked, “Which is the healthiest country?”, they often viewed their own to be the best. Of the seven choices, Australia was a big favorite — maybe from images of surfer filled beaches. The US, now known most everywhere for its fast food culture and high incidence of obesity, surprisingly scored much higher on the list than Japan which has some of the lowest obesity levels in the developed world.