To Your Health: Setting Healthy Goals for the Entire Family
Nutrition tips, tools and information for setting healthy nutrition and physical activity goals for the family.
Setting Healthy Goals Family Guide
If you’ve been thinking about healthy goals and resolutions, this is a great time to think about setting healthy goals for the entire family. Setting family goals means helping your child set healthy goals too. This is a great opportunity to help kids learn the importance of healthier food choices and being active by encouraging kids to set healthy goals! They need to be part of the discussion so that they feel involved and will feel more committed to working on the healthy goal.
There is a lot of work that goes into keeping a family healthy. Just keeping track of the annual pediatric check ups, the dentist appointments every 6 months, and maybe even a trip to the optometrist is a job in itself. If you have added in an after-school activity such as swim lessons or basketball, it’s no wonder it may feels like there is little time for setting healthy goals for kids and the family. Not to worry. We want to make it easy for you.
This article will give you an easy step-by-step guide on how to set healthy goals including easy ways to encourage healthy choices and keeping kids motivated to work on their healthy eating and physical activity goals.
Planning to set healthy goals with children
Setting healthy family goals can be a fun family event. Yes, a fun event! By making it a special event, you build excitement and anticipation with the kids. This will help them look forward to discussing healthier food choices and physical activity.
- ✰ During a family meal, discuss the reason for healthy goals.
- ✰ Talk about how doing healthy activities keeps our body feeling great and growing strong.
- ✰ Encourage the kids to talk about their ideas about being healthy.
- ✰ Set a family date and time when you will have “Healthy Goals” night for the family.
- ✰ Discuss how important each person ideas are to helping the family pick a healthy goal.
- ✰ Ask each family member to think of healthy goals for the family and one for themselves.
Ideas for setting healthy goals for kids and the family
There are many simple steps that you can do to keep healthy and active as a family together. Here are some ideas of nutrition and fitness topics you might consider when setting new healthy goals with your children. Consider what areas need improvement. Talk to children about starting with a small area of improvement and how each positive step toward healthier food choices will add up. It is important to make changes gradual.
- ✰ read food labels while at the store
- ✰ eat at least 5 servings of fruits/veggies per day
- ✰ drink 2-3 cups of milk or a high calcium food every day
- ✰ substitute meat for other high protein foods one day a week
- ✰ 60 minutes daily physical activity goals
- ✰ eat with the entire family at the kitchen table
- ✰ limit TV time to 2 hours a day
- ✰ use small salad plates for the entrée to help with portion control
- ✰ wash hands and wrists for at least 20 seconds
- ✰ drink 6 to 8 cups of water each day
- ✰ choose foods with 100% whole grains
- ✰ start off the each day with breakfast
Setting healthy nutrition and physical activity goals
Often, we set very broad goals or too many goals. After not being able to keep them up we give up thinking this is too hard. Changing your child’s healthy eating and physical activity habits can be challenging. Set your family for success with these simple guidelines for setting new goals.
- ✰ Have everyone share their ideas
- ✰ Write each idea down
- ✰ Discuss the ideas and decide on one or two family goals
- ✰ Be very specific
- ✰ Keep it simple (if this is an new habit, just select one day vs. seven days)
- ✰ Start small. Don’t make big changes all at once.
- ✰ Have each family member set one individual goal
- ✰ Agree as a family on your time period. For example, you will work on this goal for 4 weeks.
- ✰ Use a fun kid friendly agreement and have each family member sign it
- ✰ Post the family agreement up in a visible place as a quick reminder
- ✰ Post the individual agreement in the child’s room or on their door.
Here is an example of a specific healthy family goal:
Too general nutrition goal: Eat more fruit and less processed snacks
Specific goal nutrition goal: Serve fresh fruit salad for dinner on Monday and Tuesday nights for dinner for the next 2 months.
Too general fitness goal: Increase our physical fitness
Specific physical activity goal: A family hike every Saturday for 45 minutes this month
Setting positive expectations with the kids about setting goals
Healthy habits take time to become a part of a normal routine. If you encourage kids and keep it fun, they are more likely to want to stick with the goal.
- ✰ Plan to work on your goals for several weeks.
- ✰ Don’t expect to be perfect. It is normal to have ups and downs.
- ✰ Be patient. New health habits take time
- ✰ Small steps are great, they add up over time
- ✰ Keep it fun and positive – no nagging
- ✰ Give encouragement to each other even when goals aren't met
- ✰ Work on one or two goals over the next several weeks vs. working on several goals for one or two weeks
Set your family for success to reach new healthy goals
With a little bit of planning, you can really set your family up for success. By working with your kids to discuss and understand their goals, they will learn about actions that will help them succeed. Your child will also learn easy ways to avoid actions that will derail their goals. Involve the kids and have them help create an environment for success.
- ✰ Have each family member share ideas on ways that you can be successful
- ✰ Make a list of ways to keep the family motivated
- ✰ Make a list of the obstacles that make it difficult to be successful
- ✰ Start each morning with a positive encouraging statement
- ✰ Agree to remove obstacles, distractions and temptations
- ✰ Plan to have healthy foods or fitness activities available
Keeping the kids motivated to achieving their healthy goal
Free Kids Goal Setting Agreements
Free Kids Fun Goal Tracking Sheets
Set your family up for a success with your New Year healthy resolutions.
Keeping the kids motivated is very important. Tracking goals in a positive way is a great way to keep goals active and very visible. Just like teaching kids to keep lists and cross off school projects as they complete them, this is a great tool to use in tracking health goals. It will be fun to have your child color or put a sticker every time you complete the goal. The best way to keep your child engaged is through positive reinforcement. Patience, smiles, encouraging words or praise and fun are key elements to helping kids maintain their commitment.
- ✰ Use a kid-friendly healthy tracking sheet to track your family and individual goals
- ✰ Track the goals daily or weekly depending on the goal
- ✰ Post your family tracking sheet on the refrigerator or family bulletin board.
- ✰ Keep the tracking sheet visible
- ✰ Have your child color or post a star each time the goal is completed
- ✰ Talk about your goals and successes during family time
- ✰ Be excited and enthusiastic! This will help kids stay involved and motivated.
- ✰ Celebrate success even if they are small steps
Setting goals can be a rewarding and bonding experience for the whole family. Work together as a family to change healthy habits. Your family may need a lot of stars at first before they completely adopt a new behavior. This is OK as it is part of the process of adopting and maintaining healthy habits.
Just remember that every positive change, no matter how small, will add up to a healthier child!
Happy New Year and Happy Health Goals!
Written on: December 2009
Last updated: December 2009
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