Parents dictate their children s future… statistics show us parents are failing at encouraging their children to have healthy lifestyles. Studies have shown that it is the responsibility of parents to provide guidance and inspiration for their children to pursue healthy and active lives. It is the environment that children live in home that will ultimately determine their pattern of eating, activity levels and attitude towards pursuing a healthy life. We can remove all the dessert bars; soda and junk food machines from the schools and children will still continue to eat improperly. Parents or guardians must take responsibility and maintain a healthy example for their children to establish a healthy physical, psychological and emotional

lifestyle.

Poor nutrition and a lack of daily exercise have been the leading causes of the rise in health problems and the decrease in academic achievement amongst children. In addition, children will develop emotional and psychological problems that will manifest throughout the rest of their lives. It s a common understanding that you cannot put a price on one s health, but when bad habits begin to lower the quality of life and you can quantify the result in lower income and increased medical costs, it becomes very real. Thus, demanding the need to find a solution.

Kids are more physically active when their parent encourages and supports that interest. Such support boosts children’s positive attitude toward exercise

as well as their interest in organized sports. And when you participate in free-time physical activity with your daughter or son, you increase her or his enjoyment of unstructured fitness fun.

You don’t have to excel at any sport to accomplish the necessary changes to improve your children s health. Try these ideas for playing and being active together:

Take a family bike ride or walk. Find nearby trails, tracks or safe routes for all ages in your group. On weekends, when you have more time, plan rides or walks at sites farther from home to keep up interest.
Reduce the time your kids spend

inactive watching TV and DVDs, playing computer games, even at the movies. Substitute active entertainments such as swimming, bowling, going to the roller or ice rink, visiting the zoo.
Play games outside with your kids everything from hopscotch and jump rope to hide-and-seek, basketball or badminton. Don’t worry about what the neighbors will think.
Play physically active games indoors with your kids. Treasure hunts, dancing, ping-pong, even yoga can keep the family moving when the weather makes staying inside necessary.
Consider getting a family membership at the local “Y” or community center. These facilities give you opportunities for several kinds of play and often have special parent-child activity sessions.

If you belong to a health club or gym, find out if your adolescent or teenager is eligible to join. Then you can exercise side-by-side on various types of equipment. Be sure to have a trainer show your child how to use the machines and set up an appropriate workout program for him or her.

Obesity has so many ramifications. It contributes to higher incidences of cancer, specifically kidney cancer, and orthopedic complications, due to the excess stress on bones and cartilage. Diabetes alone costs about $130 billion a year. The disease can cause blindness, kidney failure, strokes and heart disease.

Experts with the International Obesity Task Force estimate that 22 million of the world’s children under 5 are

overweight or obese. The organization estimates that 300 million people worldwide are obese and 750 million more are overweight.

Genetics is not always fair and some people have more trouble staying lean than others. However, it is only recently that having a body that tended toward staying lean was any kind of advantage. Through most of history survival depended on being able to store as many calories as possible against times of scare resources or famine. So the modern body evolved to cope with times of scarcity not times of plenty - and we have the genes to prove it.

Unfortunately, given our lifestyle that provides huge amounts of easily available calories and very little exercise it

is inevitable that people will tend to gain weight. The solution is for parents to teach their children to eat less, eat better and exercise more, that is not always easy, but many things that are simple are not easy.

Mike Torchia is a nationally-recognized health and fitness expert who specializes in children’s fitness. He is the founder and president of Operation Fitness, a program designed to improve health and fitness among America’s young people.

More information on childhood health and fitness issues and programs can be found at [http://www.operationfitness.com/operation.html]Mike Torchia’s Operation Fitness information page