Healthy Habits

Decide on the amount of time your teen is allowed to spend on their phone, watching TV or playing computer or video games. Parents should limit their own screen time as well.

Go for a walk or bike ride as a family. Visit KidsHealth for more ideas and information.

Include at least four servings of fruits, five servings of vegetables and four servings of dairy products. Prepare school lunches and dinners together.

This will help replace what is lost from sweating. Water is best. Avoid flavored sports drinks and soft drinks that are loaded with sugar.

They are often full of fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar.

Teens should get 9 to 10 hours of sleep every night.

Talk to your teen about the health risks related to smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or doing drugs, and sexual activity.

This helps encourage teens to make healthier choices while spending important time together. The bonus: They learn how to prepare their own meals!

Teens’ bodies grow and change a lot so they need more calories to support these changes. For parents, promoting good eating habits means more than helping teens manage their calories. Teens need to get a good balance of protein, complex carbohydrates, dietary fat, vitamins, and minerals. Most teens get twice the amount of protein they need, but not enough vitamins and minerals, such as calcium, iron, zinc, and vitamin D.

1. Keep healthy, easy foods on hand, and limit unhealthy snacks. Most of us snack when tempting food is around – even if we’re not hungry. Teens are no different. That’s why parents should keep healthy foods around that require no preparation, such as nuts and fruit. Limit processed foods like chips and cookies.
    
2. Talk to your teen about food and promote health when you do so. Research shows that when parents talk about food and connect it to weight control, teens tune out.  Instead, talk to your teens about which foods are healthy and why. This will help them build skills they can use for the rest of their lives, such as reading nutrition labels for fat, salt and sugar content. 
    
3. Lead by example by modeling healthy eating. Part of supporting teens is ensuring that they develop the ability to make decisions for themselves. Parents can model how to make healthy food choices by eating well themselves, which supports any conversations about food choices.

1. Encourage teens to find fun activities. As with healthy eating, teens are more likely to choose to exercise if it is easy and fun for them. Not every teen wants to play on their high school sports team or go for a run. The good news is many activities can get teens moving – they just need to find the activity that’s right for them. Some ways to get exercise include jumping rope, shooting hoops, raking leaves or doing other fun chores, dancing, hiking, walking, yoga, swimming, tennis, and playing catch. Just about any activity that gets a teen moving is good. 
    
2. To help teens avoid injury, be mindful of doing too much. If teens are excited about an activity, or if they feel pressure to participate, it can lead them to overdo things. Remind teens to listen to their body so they know to stop when things hurt. You also may want to monitor if their weight drops below normal levels or if physical activity interferes with other responsibilities.