Heart Health for Kids - Laying the Lifelong Foundation for Optimum Health
Why is a discussion on heart health for kids important?
The habits kids form become the habits they live with as adults. Until they're forced to change once they've had a heart attack, stroke, or other heart ailment.
Why not empower your kids to care for their hearts while they're young to avoid many health problems as they age?
Kids who form healthy habits live with them naturally. If you
- understand the benefits and relationship between health and fitness for kids,
- inspire kids to be physically active or to participate in sports,
- introduce kids to
health food
and feed them
- organic food
- help kids learn to manage their stress, an important factor in heart health for kids,
you
increase the odds your kids
remain free from the many heart related diseases and illnesses possible.
Kids need to witness role models who they copy and learn from. Most importantly, they need to see their parents pay attention to and focus upon keeping themselves healthy.
Educators have discovered that for the first 6 years of a child's life, she is like a sponge, absorbing into her subconsciousness everything she sees and is exposed to.
A popular saying states:
"If you give a woman a potato, you feed her for a day.
If you teach her how to grow potatoes, you feed her for life."
(I'm a vegetarian, so I'm excluding "fish" and using potato).
In other words, teach heart health for kids now, and their hearts will be healthy for life!
When I was employed as a Health Researcher for a company manufacturing a hand held portable cholesterol monitor, I investigated the causes of high cholesterol.
I found long term, scientific studies based on the health habits of Seventh Day Adventists.
Seventh Day Adventists are "a conservative religious denomination who abstain from tobacco and alcohol; approximately one-half follow a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet." (excerpted from American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 31, S191-S198, Copyright © 1978 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc)
The following report makes crystal clear that saturated fats found in meat play a crucial role in heart disease for men.
"In summary, it is clear that for cancers of the colon and prostate, and fatal heart disease in men, vegetarian Seventh-day Adventists have an advantage over their non vegetarian counterparts.
"This is probably also true for risks of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and arthritis.
Moreover, these effects are related to both the reduced consumption of meat and the increased intake of fruit, vegetables, grains, and nuts by the vegetarians."
Are you beginning to see the importance of heart health for kids and the role meat plays in causing heart disease?
If it's been scientifically proven that eating meat causes heart disease, why don't more people stop eating meat?
People eat meat because they
- like the taste of meat,
- believe their doctors that nothing is wrong with eating meat (even though 90% of doctors have almost no training in nutrition), and
- aren't desperate enough yet to change.
According to Dr. Jonny Bowden, doctor who has a PhD in Nutrition:
"Asking your doctor about nutrition or nutritional supplements is like asking your accountant to recommend golf clubs.
Your typical MD knows about as much about preventative medicine, wellness, health and food as he does about Elizabethan costume drama."
That's why it's crucial for your child's understanding of health to become interested in diet and nutrition at an early age.
Here's one of many...
Health Activities for Kids
you can share with them if you're really interested in heart health for kids.
Warning: Following this health activity for kids will change your perspective on the meat you eat.
If you see how animals are treated in slaughter houses, it may change your mind about consuming meat. (I've been a vegetarian for more than twenty-five years).
Two other eye opening health activities for kids follow, these are less threatening to your status quo.
When you're feeling well rested, energetic, alert, take your child to your regular grocery store. Explain ahead of time that you won't be shopping, you'll just be watching.
Upon arrival, look closely at people's
- wrinkly, crinkly skin,
- bulging waist lines,
- sagging eyes, but mostly at
- faces.
Do the majority of them seem sad, worn out, beaten down?
Part of this is caused by their lifestyle habits, part of this by the food they eat and how much work their digestive systems expend to eliminate the waste from their bodies.
Next visit a local hospital with your kids, and look at the visitors. Granted, most will be sad because a loved one is suffering.
But how energetic do they look?
How healthy to they appear?
Consider visiting childrens holistic health information to further your education on not only heart health for kids, but lifelong health.
Another aspect of heart health for kids is how our hearts feel towards other people.
How does our heart experience loss and grief when a loved one passes on?
I recently saw the Hallmark Movie Charlie and Me, and tears flowed watching the love between 12 year old Casey and her grandpa Charlie.
Here's a review for the movie Christian Cinema, who recommend the movie for kids 12 and up.
Books for Raising Healthy Kids
Obviously there are many health topics for kids I'm unable to cover on heart health for kids.
You can easily find these on your own by doing a Google Search, such as
- physical fitness for kids,
- general health concerns for kids,
- use of herbs, vitamins and minerals, and
- health and nutrition for kids.
If you'd like to find some books for raising healthy kids, visit
-
health books for kids
-
kids books about food
- kids books and self-esteem
- childrens books on self esteem and
- books on building childrens self-esteem.
Self-esteem is crucial to heart health for kids because until we value ourselves, we treat ourselves like ....
Lastly, if you're looking for information for heart health for kids as they age and when they become adults, look at health education for kids, perhaps the most important page on Childrens Educational Books.
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