Focusing On Your Teen's Fitness
Teenagers can be notoriously difficult to deal with, and nowhere is this more evident in their eating and fitness habits. However, childhood obesity is a huge problem these days, and you owe it to your teenager to make sure that your teenager is as fit as possible. Here are some tips that will help you to help your teen get fit.
First, you need to look at yourself and determine how you were encouraging your teenager's poor fitness habits. After all, you are the parent. Most of the food he is eating comes from food that you have purchased and brought into the house. You were the one who let him sit in front of the television or computer screen. And what is your own fitness level? Are you showing him how a fit person acts? This is not to demonize you. Rather, you need to be very clear about how you contributed to the problem, so that you can stop doing negative things, and start doing great things.
Then, you need to stop encouraging bad behavior. If you don't like what your teenager is eating, don't buy it. Make sure you have nutritious food and snacks in your home. He may complain, but if he is hungry and you've brought good food home, he does have a lot of fresh and healthy food to eat and will be ok. If you have let him watch too much TV, set some limits on how much is allowed.
Talk to your teenager. Your teen is not a kid any longer, so he can understand what you have to say about health and exercise. You may find that your teen has been giving this thought for a while, but didn't know how to start.
Figure out how to get him exercising, by looking at his interests. You can ask him what kind of exercise looks interesting, and go from there. Your teen will likely have some ideas about different exercises and physical activities he would like to do, and you can help him come up with ideas.
Do things together. It is hard to find time with a teenager anyway, but when you have a common purpose, you can share some time together at the same time you are getting fit. It can be an enjoyable and invigorating experience for both of you.
Be patient. It's really easy to lose your patience with your teenager. That's why you need to be aware that he's not going to workout all the time. He won't always eat properly, either. But you need to make sure that you are patient and keep working on moving him forward.
Your teenager might be reluctant to get started, but when he sees the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, he'll be more likely to keep it up. Use the information here to make sure that you do what you can to help him get started with fitness, and make sure that he knows that you are always there for help or feedback.
