Encouraging a healthy lifestyle for our DCs - who wants to join me?

[frugalfuzzpig]

The recent threads about obesity etc have got me even more determined to encourage healthy habits in my DCs (4 and 6). I think a lot of people on those threads want to do the same so I thought a specific place to chat might be helpful!

The biggest change we made last year was ditching the TV/DVDs Monday-Thursday. We'd got really dependent on it as a family but now the DCs just play more and don't even want to binge on it at the weekend anymore.

Active stuff I find hard, I'm disabled and am in pain and/or dizzy a lot, but thankfully DH takes them out a fair bit. We don't have a garden but we have lots of woodland nearby. They walk to school (no car).

We'd also got a little too reliant on freezer food over the last year or so and they were getting a bit picky about food. I have finally started being able (physically) to cook again and I'm trying to get a bit more variety and also get the DCs involved which we'd not really done before.

We are also saying no to constant requests for food. DH in particular hates letting them be hungry (grew up starving thanks to abusive mother) and has often given them snacks even just before dinner but I was really struck by the other thread where it was said by lots of posters that snacking is a totally new phenomenon, and it's ok to say "nothing til dinner or you'll spoil your appetite"!

Anyone else want to join me in making things healthier for their DCs?

totally new? I grew up snacking & grazing all day long (born in 60s).
Am a lot fitter & better BMI than most women my age (late 40s).
But it's bad for teeth, I'll give you that. And it's friggin' annoying from the children who can't feed themselves doesn't let me MN in peace.

Good luck on your quest. I have a big thing about limiting sugary foods and keeping active.

Well, according to people on the obesity thread it is new anyway. :o

Yes sugary foods is a big one. We don't generally have chocolate/sweets in the house and I'd like to just do some baking now and again with the DCs rather than buying biscuits etc.

They are also total cereal fiends and I think that will be very hard to change but it is really shocking how much crap is in cereal.

No prob with home-made freezer food - freeze for kids if you make extra. Big influence is Mum and Dad exercising, whatever your ability, so setting an example.

If they're hungry, offer fruit or veg (carrots, peppers, cucumber, cheese). We let DSs have leftover home-made fruit crumble for breakfast - at least you know how much sugar is in it.

Swimming and cycling are great exercise and lots of fun.

We are trying to stick to porridge or eggs for breakfast. Sweets as rare treats one every few weeks. More water, fruit teas etc, less espresso/smoothies. We mostly cook from scratch already and have s low gluten diet but want to start baking.

Want to get the kids more physical also

Well done for cutting out TV. DH and i were discussing that we've got into a real habit of sticking cbeebies on first thing and then before you know it it's been on for hours!

I think this is a tough time of year. The weather has been rubbish. My DC get cold and sad v quickly in the wind/rain. You have to take towels to the park to dry the seats/swings etc. I noticed last year and again this year that Christmas treats and indulgences linger, so instead of warm milk the dc ask for hot chocolate. We still have biscuit selections about and sharing crisps - things we would never normally have or give to the dc. I've lost my way with meal planning and batch cooking after catering for so many guests and having leftovers/eating out etc.

We are quite active as a family - we swim a lot, but we haven't got the dc into cycling at all. Dd1 has suddenly cracked scooting which has made the school run a lot easier and must be good exercise. Dd2 will walk good distances but can't scoot yet. I can't see any of us being up for tackling bikes til it's drier and warmer, but that and meal planning will be my healthy targets.

Yes winter makes things much harder IME, the DCs went a bit stir crazy over Xmas. I'm really glad DH is around to take them out a lot (they don't mind bad weather) as I can't if it's a bad day health wise. It would be so much easier with a garden that they could mess about in, hopefully when we move we will have one even if it's tiny - it'll make a huge difference.

Meal planning is quite new to me as well, we tend to go for a semi-structured approach so we will have a few specific meals in mind and then improvise the rest.

We've cut out a lot of processed stuff, avoiding things like aspartame as well. As much 'whole food' as possible and no more low fat (= full of other shite) stuff.

They are really good with fruit, they would eat it all day if they could but I'm more conscious now of tipping the balance in favour of veggies so it's not as much sugar. We don't buy juice or smoothies, they are a rare treat when out now. We only have water usually.

Unfortunately the DCs hate porridge. We had pancakes today as we ran out of cereal (I don't think that's happened for years ) and they looked hideously unhealthy with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar but it may well be less sugar than a bowl of cereal. DD (6) likes eggs so she may be easy to convince but not sure about DS (4), he's much pickier at the moment. DD seems to have reached a stage where she's enthusiastic about food and trying things which is making life a lot easier.

Getting DS involved is definitely helping though. He's recently helped me make pesto and cauliflower cheese (neither of which we've had for a long time as I wasn't able to cook until recently) and he gladly ate both - I don't think he'd have tried either if I'd just put it in front of him IYSWIM?

Sorry for the waffle

Also this is quite embarrassing to admit but we've agreed on a rule that lunch or dinner will NEVER AGAIN be served without any veg at all. There are normally veggies with dinner anyway but it was quite easy (particularly if rushed for time or lacking energy) to serve up a sandwich or jacket spud or freezer food type meal without any. So now I always add some even if it's just chopping up yet another bit of carrot/cucumber. They always eat that, it was purely laziness/forgetfulness that meant we didn't add it to every meal.

Ooh they sound great thanks. Have used frozen berries before and I was thinking it'd be good to have some on standby for stuff like this!

I have put oats in pancake batter before too which went down well too, but can't do it if DH is eating them as he's coeliac.