5 Ways to Keep Kids Healthy During the Holidays

5 Ways to Keep Kids Healthy During the Holidays

Of the many responsibilities parents have during the holiday season, making sure their kids are safe and healthy is among the most important. But with the demands of holiday shopping, wrapping gifts, making travel plans, preparing the big holiday meals, and putting up decorations, it’s easy to overlook some of the basics, like making sure your kids are getting proper nutrition. Unfortunately, the holidays are a time of the year where maintaining a healthy diet can be extremely challenging.

Holiday feasts often come with a variety of unhealthy menu selections, especially desserts, which are loaded with fat and sugar. Since sugar weakens the immune system (which increases the chances of getting sick) be sure to closely monitor your children’s sugar intake.

Getting proper physical exercise is usually a challenge when it starts getting colder outside. Winter months also have reduced hours of sunlight, so maintaining optimal vitamin D levels is crucial in staving off sickness. With longer lines and shorter days, another area of life that can suffer from the busyness of the seasons is sleep.

With so many things to consider during this hectic time of the year, here are 5 practical ways to keep your kids healthy for the holidays:

Eat from the Rainbow

This does NOT mean Skittles or jelly beans. It means teaching your children to eat healthy fruits and vegetables in assorted colors, such as blueberries, spinach, pomegranates, yellow squash, and red bell peppers, at every meal. Challenge your kids to eat meals that consist of every color of the rainbow… And don’t forget to set the example!

Disguise Healthy Snacks

Even the pickiest kids are more likely to try new foods when they’re disguised as boats, cars, butterflies, or cows. Learn how you can make a healthy penguin snack.

Get Nutritional Support

Studies have shown that an alarmingly high percentage of children eat less than the minimum daily allowance of many essential nutrients and that modern foods don’t meet children’s needs for those nutrients. Adding an expertly designed multivitamin/mineral supplement to your kids’ diet can help provide the nutritional support they need. BrainMD’s Kids’ NeuroVite Chewables were designed to bridge any nutritional gaps and take the guesswork out of which multivitamin to use for your kids. Our science-based formulation provides generous amounts of nutrients to support the brain’s maturation over the long term. Children LOVE the taste of the orange-flavored penguin chewables which are free from sugar, dairy, gluten, wheat, eggs, and artificial colorings or flavorings.

Bundle Up

It’s common for kids to forget to put on a jacket or hat when rushing outside for a fun activity. Ensure that your kids stay warm by dressing them in layers. Also, monitor their time to make sure they don’t stay outside too long or after dark when temperatures can rapidly plummet.

Indoor Activities

Instead of sitting around the TV all day, get up and do a fun activity inside your house. There are many ways to get the blood flowing without facing the elements or contracting pneumonia. Examples of indoor activities are musical chairs, scavenger hunts or hula hoop contests.

Managing everyday stress and balancing your life will allow you to fully enjoy the seasons and focus on what matters most…your friends and family. Implementing these strategies can help keep you and your kids happy and healthy during the holidays.

For a complete list of Dr. Amen’s brain healthy supplements, visit the online store at BrainMD.

Keith Rowe
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