National Family Wellness Month was developed to support and educate families by providing resources and services for achieving and maintaining a healthier lifestyle. Created to help families overcome their biggest challenges to staying healthy and connected, the goal of this month is “to provide an opportunity to reflect on family habits, lifestyles and find ways to improve mental and physical health.”
By setting family goals and practicing good nutritional habits, you can make overall wellness a priority. In addition, by choosing healthier lifestyle choices, you can also lead to a more fulfilling life for you and your family!
NJ Diet would like to take this opportunity during National Family Wellness Month to provide you with valuable information on how to take charge of your family’s health, which often begins with managing your weight through diet and exercise.
Tips To Achieve Family Wellness
The following tips can assist towards keeping you and your family on the right path, all while managing and maintaining diet, fitness, and mental health:
- Healthy Food Choices: Eating a wide variety of lean proteins, fiber, complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats like those found in raw, unsalted nuts and olive oil is encouraged for a healthy lifestyle. Keeping hydrated with lots of water is also important. Maintaining a healthy diet from a young age can help prevent health issues such as heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and weight-related bone and joint stress.
- Exercise: Finding the time to incorporate exercise can be channeled into infusing any sedentary family time you may already have with activities like bike riding, brisk walking or running, ice or roller skating, swimming, hiking, dancing, bowling—anything that gets you up, out of the house, and moving.
- Oral Health: Good oral hygiene, including regular check-ups, cleanings, frequent brushing, and flossing, is imperative in establishing a good foundation for health. The removal of plaque and prevention of cavities, gingivitis, periodontal disease, and tooth decay can impact other conditions, and poor oral hygiene has been linked to cardiovascular disease, premature birth, and more.
- Limiting Alcohol And Stopping The Use Of Tobacco: Alcohol in moderation can be part of your lifestyle, but limiting alcohol consumption as much as possible – as well as eliminating the use of tobacco altogether – is key towards living a healthy life, and establishing a model of good health that can be followed by the entire family.
- Mental Health: Stress and depression can be linked to physical conditions such as fatigue, severe body aches and pains, migraines and more. Taking a little time each day to turn off devices, meditate, breathe deeply, and empty your mind can help towards lowering blood pressure and heart rate. Families who meditate together or incorporate “quiet time” report a heightened feeling of wellbeing, which can impact physical health.
NJ Diet utilizes DNA testing to determine your ideal diet and workout plan. Using blood work, hair and saliva sample, patients typically lose 20-50 pounds in only 40 days. In addition, you will see that dieting is only one component of our program. Our program is also a detoxification and hormone balancing program – where the side effect is weight loss, but the end result is better overall health and well being.
Why Family Health Is So Important
Many medical professionals agree that physical and mental health are interrelated, so taking care of one can impact the other in achieving a balanced life. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, comprehensive, continuing family health care, including prevention and early detection, is the key to optimal family health.
Statistics show that if adults are unhealthy, fatigued, or consistently stressed, the effect on your children, or those your care for, can cause sleeplessness, depression, and more. In short, the health of the entire family is connected by it’s individual members, and taking responsibility for your own health can in turn mean stronger, happier lives for everyone. Exercising and cooking healthy meals together — as well as spending quality time together — strengthen the family bond and encourages family health.
Getting Healthy As A Family
The habits and activities you take part of during May to celebrate Family Wellness Month shouldn’t last only this month. To instill lifelong positive habits it is important to establish healthy patterns at an early age. When children become accustomed to eating unhealthily during their youth, it can make it more difficult to change their eating patterns later in life. By introducing them to various fruits and vegetables at an early age, they may grow more accustomed to the different tastes and may even prefer them to unhealthy alternatives.
The NJ Diet program is a specialized program utilizes DNA testing to determine your ideal diet and workout plan, taking into account your eating behavior. We use personalized genetic testing can also used by any of your health care providers to help make critical decisions regarding your health. Each individual’s specific needs for essential vitamins, plus many more metabolic factors are assessed genetically to make sure you stay healthy for years to come.
Here are some suggestions on how to work together with your family to increase your family’s emotional, psychical, and mental wellness which can hopefully transition into healthier habits that will last permanently:
- Practice Mindful Eating: It is important to consider when and where you eat. Eating while distracted by a TV, phone or computer is not ideal, as distracted eating can lead you to eat more. Similarly, using food as a “reward” or “punishment” for certain behaviors, or as a method to soothe oneself, is not encouraged. By incorporating the mindset of “mindful-eating”, you in turn focus on consuming food to nourish your body. Try to pay more attention to hunger cues and encourage that when you feel satiated, you can stop eating – you don’t necessarily need to ‘clean your plate.’
- Keep Healthy Choices In The House: If you want your family to make healthy food choices, keep a variety of healthy foods in the house. Even better, have those foods prepared and ready to eat on the go, so that eating something unhealthy does not become an easier option than choosing healthy alternatives. Some examples can be celery with almond butter, low-fat yogurt with fruit, or carrots with hummus — delicious snacks that are also nutritious and healthy for the entire family.
- Encourage Daily Activity: Exercise and being active are an important part of your daily routine. Something as simple as taking an evening walk or a bike ride, going to the park or playing a family sport are all good possibilities. Team sports are a great way to get exercise and encourages social interaction, both of which are important to you and your family. Similarly, consistency towards incorporating daily activity is key; and the earlier you start, the more your family can have the groundwork to live an active life.
- Eating Together As A Family: By creating a family dinner routine, it can help you and your family reconnect after your busy days. Schedules can get crazy, and incorporating dinnertime regularly can be difficult with varying work, school activities and homework. But by sitting together while eating, talking and trying to remain consistent with dinner, you can incorporate healthy eating habits as well. According to the American Psychological Association, when families eat at least three meals together per week, children are 24% more likely to eat healthy foods. Additionally, children are also 12% less likely to be overweight.
- Ensure Enough Sleep: It’s vital to get the right amount of sleep each night to function optimally. It’s good to start as early as possible by setting a nightly routine so that healthy sleep becomes a habit and a normal part of life. To help establish healthy sleep, it can be helpful to create routines surrounding bedtime. Things like instituting regular bedtimes, removing electronics (which may interfere with restful sleep) and creating an environment of rest and relaxation that promotes restful sleep are all helpful tips. Even though you may not go to bed at the same time as the rest of the family, it’s important that everyone understand and value the importance of sleep for the entire family.
- Be A Positive Role Model And Avoid Negative Body Talk: One of the most important steps you can take to create a healthy family is to model healthy behaviors for your children. So if you encourage your children to adopt healthy behaviors, but routinely engage in unhealthy ones, you’re sending mixed messages. Show them how to be healthy through your own actions. Similarly, be kind to yourself and try not to dwell on negative aspects of your body. Children are attentive to their parents and emulate what they see, so focus on the parts of your body that you are proud of, and emphasize that everybody is different.
Happy Family, Healthy Lives!
Creating a healthy life for your family by encouraging good eating habits and wellness is part of what we strive towards. By starting with putting the focus on being healthy yourself, you in turn can create an environment that instills healthy habits in your children or other loved ones. Making the decision every day to engage in healthy habits, you are helping to ensure better health for you and your children—not only for today, but for the future.
These are just some of the helpful tips for you and your family to develop healthy habits. Of course each family is different and has specific health issues they may be facing, so as always consult your healthcare professional for any health-related concerns.
National Family Wellness Month can serve as a reminder that celebrating your health and wellness on a daily basis is a positive step for the entire family.
We welcome the opportunity for you to have a consultation at NJ Diet.
A consultation is normally $99, but by registering on our website it will only cost $27!
Our program is not only aimed at promoting healthy weight loss, but aims to improve your total wellness. Each of our client’s specific needs for vitamins and supplements are assessed, plus many more metabolic factors are genetically tested to make sure you succeed on our program — not just for temporary weight loss, but to maintain good health for life!
