Health: A Home Schooling Weight Management Program
By Mimi Rothschild
When you spend everyday building your own schedule while home schooling your children, it can be a challenge to keep your children's weight at an acceptable level. The refrigerator is always accessible and overlooking mindless eating while working on home school lessons is sometimes preferable to taking the time to prepare a meal.
How, then, can you manage your children's weight while you home school your children without letting your commitment to their education slip to the wayside? Making healthy choices for your children's lifestyle need not conflict with their home school curriculum. Healthy choices are necessary for weight maintenance.
Is Your Child's Weight Healthy?
A healthy weight for a home schooler can easily slip to the bottom of your priority list when you have school board deadlines, field trips, classes, and meetings. However, your home schooler doesn't need to be 'skinny' in order to be healthy. BMI or body mass index is a standard way for doctors and other health professionals to gauge whether your child's weight is in a healthy range. This is a ratio of height to weight, and the average healthy BMI is between 24 and 26, with a rating of 27 as overweight and 30 plus rating as obese. Because the BMI scale does not consider muscle weighs more than fat, it is should only be used as a guide. However, in general, the higher your home schooler's body fat is, the higher his or her BMI will be. You can consult a BMI chart or ask your doctor to explain further.
How Can I Help My Home Schooler Lose Weight Most Efficiently?
Losing weight should not be stressed to any child as the goal. Instead, it is the healthy lifestyle and beneficial effects of exercise and healthy eating that should be the focus. Maintaining a healthy weight is more important than the actual loss. Help your home schooler make lifestyle changes that will lead to weight loss and weight management. Presented below are some lifestyle changes that may help your child achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
- Do what you say. Children learn better to emulate your action than to carry out your directives. Choosing outdoor activities instead of the TV and choosing healthy snacks instead of sugary foods will make it less of an issue when it's time for your home schooler to follow suit.
- Make gradual changes. Big changes take the focus off the fun and health behind exercise and good eating and put the focus on what is missing. Ease your home schooler into physical outings slowly and introduce healthy foods as replacements over time to make the switch more gradual and less traumatic.
- Have fun with it. Exercise doesn't have to be boring. Go roller skating and compare it to ice skating the following week. Have potato sack or three-legged races to decide who gets to sit in the front seat on the way to art class. Sign up for gymnastics and practice cartwheels in the front yard between classes. As long as you know that this is a part of your home schooler's schedule, he or she needn't have to look at it as a chore.
- Make weight management educational. Younger children can benefit from learning about vitamins and healthy aspects of different foods while older children can learn the science behind calories and energy. Learning how their activities and food choices affect their bodies may even have them asking to make changes that you haven't considered.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling mother, writer, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of home education company Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of 28 years reside with their 8 children right outside Philadelphia, PA.
Rothschild launched Learning By Grace, Inc. because she believed that our nation's public school system has failed parents and students. Learning By Grace, Inc. offers online education through a multimedia-rich curriculum to PreK-12 children across the country and throughout the world.
An accomplished author, Rothschild has written books regarding education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Homeschooling News Café Blog consists of the most current and relevant education news.Electronic reproduction of this article is permitted if content is published unchanged, appropriate credit is given, and the article title links to corresponding article webpage.
