Health: Maintaining Your Physical Fitness In Home School
By Mimi Rothschild
Almost 2/3 of the population in this country is overweight or obese, including nearly 15% of those people under age 18. This can cause many difficulties for home school families. Like any other family, home school families are busy. Their days are jam-packed with work, lessons, sports, volunteer work, involvement in a place of worship, and many other activities. Indeed, home school families are often busier than their counterparts who choose a conventional education for their children. Home school families have taken on the extra work of making sure the children receive a quality education. Having less time to stay active and eat healthy is an invitation to weight gain, but just because you gain a few pounds, it doesn't mean that you are forever doomed to be overweight.
Many people believe that yo-yo dieting, or letting your weight increase and decrease repeatedly over time, is detrimental to your health. Some home school parents are very disheartened when they read that since their weight has been up and down a few times over the years, that they have destroyed their metabolic rate and losing weight in the future will be that much more difficult. However, there is very little research to back that up. If you, as a home school family, have let exercise and proper nutrition slide, it is never too late to get back on the bandwagon and start making it a priority in your home school schedules and curriculum. Indeed, most research suggests that it is better for overweight people to yo-yo a little bit than be constantly overweight.
Even if you have made health and fitness a priority in your home school schedule in the past but stopped, it is not too late to teach your kids good eating and exercise habits. Even older home school kids will still learn from your example, and start trying to emulate the temperance toward food and the commitment to physical fitness that you show. Furthermore, with older kids you can make fitness a special family activity. You can go jogging with your daughter or start playing tennis with your son. Not only do you get exercise and make sure your kids are getting exercise, you also make spending time with your kids one-on-one a priority in your home school schedule.
The fact that someone's weight has fluctuated in the past does not affect how safely or easily one can lose weight. It is, therefore, never too late to make healthy eating and appropriate exercise a priority in your home school schedule. Although starting good eating and exercise habits young is best for kids, it is never too late to start teaching your kids the habits that will keep them healthy for the rest of their lives.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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