7 Easy-To-Use Health Education Tips for Families

Do you know that one family that always seems to keep so healthy and trim? What is it about their lifestyle that you are not doing to keep your family fit? More often than not it is simply a matter of having a more thorough health education. Here are seven ways you can educate yourself and your family to make health and fitness a priority.

1. Work as a Team

In order to get the whole family involved, you need to increase their buy-in. Giving everyone a voice leads to greater participation. Sit down as a family to discuss your lifestyle choices and set some healthy goals you can work towards as a team.

2. Don’t Starve

Most diets are very restrictive, and result in people simply eating less. When you do not eat right, your body initiates production of the hormone Ghrelin which causes you to become insatiably hungry. The result is that you end up over indulging on unhealthy foods when you could have simply had plenty of healthy snacks, such as almonds or carrots, throughout the day.

3. Automate Meals

As Americans, we are infamous for skipping the most important meal of the day. The reason breakfast is so important is because it is the first thing you have eaten in 8-9 hours, and determines your hunger levels throughout the whole day. Instead, pick a few staples for breakfast and lunch that are quick and easy, and eat those every day. Use dinner as your meal to get creative.

4. 30 Minutes a Day

Try to get 30 minutes of exercise every day, if you can at your home. If you have to drive somewhere to exercise, you make it more difficult on yourself to keep up with it every day. If need be, split up the 30 minutes into two sessions of light, gentle exercise like walking, running, cycling, body weight resistance exercises, and weight training.

5. Be The Decision-Maker

When it comes to food, whatever you buy your children will eat. If you buy them chips and cookies, they (and probably you, too) will eat them. After this, if you try to restrict them, it will cause them to crave those unhealthy foods even more. Instead, avoid bringing those foods into the house to begin with. Keep fresh fruit and vegetables chopped in the refrigerator, and have nuts, pretzels, and other wholesome snacks on hand.

6. Eat Dinner Together

The simple ritual of sitting down together as a family for a nightly meal places a priority on nutrition and proper eating habits in your family values. Additionally, this simple act has been shown to improve parent-child relationships, and increase academic performance.

7. Play Together

An important part of your exercise regime, should be pure, unadulterated play. Whether that means putting on music and dancing around, kicking a soccer ball around, rough-housing or anything that brings out your inner

Stealing the Football Coach’s Spotlight and Refocusing it on Physical Education

In most American school systems coaches are also physical education teachers, and physical education teachers are also coaches. Historically speaking most physical educators don’t choose to go into the field because of their love for gym class, but because of their love for football, basketball, baseball… sports of some kind. And for a high percentage of these folks coaching (their first love) occupies 90% of their attention, while physical education class (their job) occupies 10% of their attention.

In other words the games, and practices for those games is where the coach’s heart is, while PE class is an afterthought, a stepchild, a second class citizen that’s tolerated because it’s the means to a highly regarded, highly valued, and often highly publicized (it’s also the most potent PR vehicle in the world for most schools systems) end – the games, the sports, and the 5 to 10% of students who actively participate.

Physical Educators and Pink Slips

Under these conditions is it any wonder why Physical Education has inadvertently climbed all way to the bottom of the academic ladder in most school systems? The people who are in charge of the classes don’t even value them.

In contrast math and science inevitably occupy the top two positions, while art, music, and physical education occupy the bottom three positions, and everything else is sandwiched in between. Under these conditions is it any wonder why physical educators are so often at the first pink slip recipients when local budget slashers start chopping away at their school system’s budget?

A Strategy Designed to Steal the Football Coach’s Spotlight

In this light I’d like to introduce a strategy that’s designed to steal the football program’s spotlight an to refocus that spotlight on the 90 to 95% of the students who have historically been overlooked, ignored, and basically shortchanged by sports dominated physical education departments, educational administrators, school boards, and American culture in general.

In the process we’ll aim to breathe new life into physical education, rescuing it from the depths of academia, placing it right up alongside math and science. After all, a mathematician or a scientist who lacks a physical body is pretty hard to value.

Solving a $100 Billion Dollar Problem

Think about this scenario. Over the past fifteen years obesity in this country has grown into an epidemic. According to government sources two thirds of Americans are overweight. One third of Americans are obese. And childhood obesity is a forest fire raging out of control costing American taxpayers a cool $100 billion annually.

I contend that physical educators can tackle this problem with a simple and cost effective intervention and successfully eliminate childhood obesity one child at a time, one school at a time, and one school system at a time. This in turn will cause local communities to see physical educators in an entirely different light. Check it out.

In Less Than Five Minutes Per Week

Here’s how it works. Show all your kindergartners how to use a height adjustable pull up bar together with a technique called leg assisted pull ups in order to grow stronger week after week, month after month, all year long while learning to do conventional pull ups. In less than five minutes a week you’ll find that 90% of your kids will learn to do conventional pull ups in year one, and the other 10% will be well on their way.*

Eliminate Childhood Obesity in Your School District

But why in the world are pull ups so important you ask? They’re important because kids who can do pull ups are NEVER OBESE. And once they’ve learned to do pull ups, all they have to do is maintain the ability and they’re IMMUNIZED AGAINST OBESITY FOR LIFE. Now if you repeat this kindergarten based scenario with each new class for five straight years, and make sure your graduates maintain their ability, childhood obesity will be eliminated in your school within five years.

Much Bigger Than a Win on the Football Field

And if you let the media in on what you’re up to it won’t be long before the junior high and high school have implemented their own respective editions of this (Operation Pull Your Own Weight) strategy, and within one decade you and your fellow physical educators will have eliminated childhood obesity in your school district completely.

Changing the Communities Eyeballs

Do you suppose that would be worth a headline or two in the local (national) newspaper, TV or radio station? And in the process what do you think that would do for the value of physical education in your community? At worst I’m talking about great job security! At best I’m talking about helping lots of kids live more productive lives while avoiding the obesity related problems that plague so many lives today. Now remind me one more time, why are math and science are so important?

If Men Try To Chop You Down Trust God To Raise You Up

What can be learned from looking at an old stump of a tree? When this man saw this stump a whole significance began to dawn!

Come read with me and look with me at these words in Isaiah Chapter 11, where God gives His man a vision of hope. He sees a shoot emerging from a cut down tree. Can anything meaningful and relevant for us today be gleaned from such a trivial sight? This shoot or branch appeared from an old tree root – a tree which had been chopped down.

Now, there is something to hold onto – when people try to chop you down – and cut you down to size. Know from the Word of God that you can rise again – that you can smile again – that life is never all over – not if you are in Christ Jesus.

The anointed Jesus will be wise – understanding – able to give counsel and advice – He will be filled with knowledge – and the fear of the Lord – not wanting to fail His Father.

He will judge righteously and justly and fairly. Creation will be reconciled with itself – as God turns the lion into a vegetarian – and the infant will be completely safe even when playing near a snake. In verses 11 and 12, Israel is brought back to her land a second time – by the arm of the Lord. We have seen this happen – a degree of national recovery. From the branch there flies a flag – and the exiles will gather.

All this flows from what to begin with looked nothing – so totally insignificant – humanly speaking it could have been said that Israel was finished – banished to Babylon. Yes this is highly controversial – particularly in the eyes of veiled blind people, who have no idea of what is in the Word of God.

Though men try to chop Israel down – even in the nicest possible surroundings of the United Nations – they have that tendency to shoot up – to re-appear – and you cannot get rid of this people – no matter how hard you try.

Who does this? The One Who sent the Branch – Jesus Christ. If enemies chop you down – HE will raise you up – and not just in your own natural strength.

God reveals truths to people who can handle revelation – men like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Moses – or Joseph – or someone like Mary and Anna – and Peter and John – very ordinary people – but people who are able to handle what God has to say and what God has to reveal.

God continues to reveal sacred secrets through the Holy Spirit – showing visions and pictures – to people who can be trusted with such treasures. From an old tree stump Isaiah sees the coming of Jesus Christ – the Messiah – the Anointed One.

Is this another reason why many people like to keep Jesus in the manger – where Jesus is unanointed and powerless? You have to go to the river for that – and all kinds of things happen at the river which people do not like.

What a significant word. May this richly bless you as you read what Isaiah actually prophesies.

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children’s Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.

He broadcasts regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans, and writes a weekly commentary at http://www.studylight.org entitled “Word from Scotland” on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper colum

Determination and Education

My dad would have turned 104 today. That is just amazing to think about – I can barely imagine 1911 in northern Idaho. Sadly my father only lived to be 59 but every year I think about him on this special day. Actually I think of him far more often than that, but his birthday is extra important to me. My dad set a marvelous example for his five daughters and in that way he lives on through us and I hope I am passing some of his excellent characteristics on to my children and grandchildren.

While there are many, the two finest traits of my dad were his determination to accomplish whatever he decided to do and his strong belief in the value of education. The first trait led him to some problems, as you can imagine, as he was far sighted and could visualize the possibilities long before they occurred to others. He planned ahead and prepared for the future while others were content to dawdle along in the present. Yes, he enjoyed the present but with foresight of what would come next.

In his younger years he spent summers out lumberjacking with my grandfather and so he knew how to work hard and how to create. He and Grandpa built our log cabin, completing it in 1939. It has served my family well all of these years. My dad was an educator, having taught or held administrative positions in schools for almost 40 years. In education he taught math which he loved and during his first years he also taught everything else: English, physical education, history, and science. That is one example of his determination. Yes, he had the background knowledge to teach all of these subjects and the diligence to make sure he was fully prepared for every lesson and the needs of every student.

My dad recognized educational possibilities in every situation. When we traveled we played word and number games, studied and memorized license plates to identify the counties from which they came, stopped at parks and historical sites to gather more knowledge, and then at the end of the day, rounded it up with a short daily exam. For birthday and Christmas I always received educational gifts. One year we built geometric configurations with pegboards and colored string and study the flow and mathematical rhythm of each. Another year we completed multiple algebraic questions concentrating on formulas and checking with proofs. Some years we read and evaluated authors and text. When we skied we engaged in math such as dividing the number of runs into the price of the ticket to determine price per run. We then stretched that by adding meals, gas, snacks, and so forth to complicate the mathematical problem and process and then decided on what it took to have a good deal. Had we factored in the fun we had, every trip would have been a tremendous bargain.

When we stayed at our cabin we always had projects to complete such as building a dock or painting the boat or filling in potholes in our forest road along with chopping wood, cooking and cleaning, and plenty of fishing and swimming. We would work together to establish our calendar of events, carefully balancing work and play with the number of days we had. No one ever left our vacation anything but exhausted, and yet happy as we planned our next outing there.

Now you may be wondering about all of this physical and brain work, and so I mu

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