How to Get the Entire Family Involved in Fitness

Upwards of 80 percent of American adults and adolescents do not engage in enough aerobic physical activity to meet minimum government recommended guidelines. Healthy habits, like any habit, begin at a young age. Children model the behavior of the adults in their lives and if the adults in their lives place a high priority on fitness, chances are they kids will also. One way to ensure this happens is to involve the whole family in aerobic physical activity. (I am intentionally avoiding the “e” word due to its negative connotations, especially among children).

Yes, I understand that family fitness routines are difficult to administer, so perhaps the following ideas might help…

• Do NOT call it exercise. Which would sound better to your family? “Let’s go exercise.” or “Your mom and I are going to kick your butts in backyard wiffle ball. Let’s go!” In our culture, exercise has become a four-letter word, especially to kids. Since that’s the case, avoid the “e” word as I have in this post when getting your family physically active.
• Make it fun and/or competitive. Young children love fun activities while older kids tend to enjoy a competitive aspect to their physical activities. The ideal activity incorporates both, like the above wiffle ball example. My two teenage boys could not field the ball after my wife hit it due to suffering from a severe laughing fit after watching her, shall we say, rather unorthodox swing. However, they quickly got serious after they realized they were behind heading into the 7^th and final inning. See? Fun AND competitive simultaneously. Games tend to be the key here, such as flag football, capture the flag, jail break, H-O-R-S-E, and pool games.
• Mix it up. Conduct different physical activities at different places. Take a nature walk around a local lake or trail, dust off the bikes and find a nearby rails to trail or bike path to avoid traffic, teach the kids how to play tennis, go fly a kite, take younger children to the playground, get in goal and see if the kids can get one by you.
• Explore new places. Do the above activities at different places. Hike a new trail, play basketball at a new-to-you outdoor court, find a historical walking tour, let your kids turn over rocks in a local stream or creek (what’s the difference between a stream and creek? I do not know), see how many different types of birds you can locate in a nearby park…great potential for a competition here as seen in the movie, The Big Year, in which Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black embark on an epic bird watching competition. Simply put, see what’s around the next corner.
• Set a family goal. Such as participating in a local 5K or fondo (bike ride) as a family or going on a family weekend hike, (which can include sleeping on the trail) or learning how to ski or utilizing pedometers to reach a family step total. Just be sure to include all members of the family in setting your goals.
• Make physical activity a habitual activity. Ensure that the younger members of the family know that physical activity is a priority in your life without explicitly telling them it is a priority in your life. Setting the same time of day for conducting your physical activity helps here. Eventually, the kids will begin grabbing the basketball or wiffle balls on their own. Once they see health and fitness are important to you, more than likely, health and fitness will become important to them as well and continue to be so well into their adult lives.
• Do not go all OCD about fitness. (obsessive compulsive disorder). Do not create a fitness spreadsheet in Excel that dictates what each family member should be doing every day for the next year. Do not ask your kids, “Have you exercised today?” and then ask, “Why not?” when they reply in the negative. Simply stated, do not turn physical activity into a chore that needs to be checked off a list on a daily basis. If you follow the previous six tips, that should not happen.

One last thing, family fitness can become a great bonding experience. You see your kids in a new light and environment and, more importantly, they see you as a teammate or friendly competitor. Taking the dog for a walk or going on a hike is a great time to just talk with one another free from the distractions of home. Just remember, have fun, don’t get too competitive and enjoy some quality time and just being with one another.