I think of health and wellness like a family adventure trip. Your family is one of two kinds. You either like to make an itinerary and travel guides. Or you like to wing it.
For personal health, winging it is a little risky because where you end up will be based on random chance. But having a plan for today and the future can be the difference between living with disease or not. Having a guide and a map for your wellness path will determine the quality and length of your life.
I work with some people who tell me that they need to separate their nutrition plan from the way they feed their kids. And it makes me sad because it’s the single worst choice an adult can make for a child. Imagine the difference between growing up with Fruit Loops and growing up with real fruits. Imagine an adult with metabolic disease who looks back and struggles to overcome decades of unhealthy childhood eating habits.
Chronic diseases – the kind that kill most of us – do not being randomly at age 50. They often brew for many years before any sign or symptom shows up. The leading cause of death around the world – cardiovascular disease – has been shown to begin as early as the teenage years.
So this is going to sound strict, because I’m using the taboo word “should.” But as parents, you can and should feed your children and yourselves the same – real, whole, and healthy food. You should be motivating your kids to move every day, sleep early and well every night, practice healthy habits for physical and mental wellbeing.
The reason every family can benefit from a health coach is that this guidance will give you a clear path for what to do for every person in the family – kids, parents, grandparents. I’ll admit I’m biased, but someone like me would give you direct science and simple practical tools so that you can make healthy living a very natural practice in your home. There is way too much misinformation out there and I find so many of my clients choose popular fads but end up with poor or damaging results.
Unless it’s your passion to become a health coach yourself, I can guarantee that your easiest and fastest way to get your whole family on a good track is to find someone who will guide you through the foundations of health – nutrition, fitness, sleep, and lifestyle. You may spend 1 to 3 months learning all the basics and making changes over this this time. In the end, you have all the important knowledge you need and you’re the new health coach for the whole family. Most important, your kids will have the best chance for a long life free of disease because they will learn healthy choices early.
