Dig Out Those Couch Potatoes!
Healthy Eating - in association with 
There's only so much a healthy diet can do on its own. Try these tips for keeping your family active.
Start them young!
It's never too early to encourage healthy activity in your child. But we're not talking competitive sport here. There's plenty of time for that later on and you don't want your child to be branded a 'failure' at anything before their first day at school. Soft ball games are good for your child as well. Apart from the sheer fun they'll experience from throwing or kicking a ball around this is a marvellous way of developing hand/eye co-ordination. Ball games can often be 'team' sports, which also means they're a great way to socialise by getting to know other toddlers.
Turn on your teenagers
Your teenage TV addict won't be swayed by threats of being forty and fat. The average teenager can barely see their twenties looming on the horizon, let alone middle age. Instead, why not (gently) suggest that success in sport equals the good life. Models hanging off the arms of footballers may bring grunts of disgust from the older generation but inspire pangs of envy in teens. If your boy equates sporting success with sexual allure he could soon be leaping off that sofa with a speed and grace that would win top marks in a gymnastics contest! Teenage girls are likely to be anxious about their appearance already; but what begins as figure-toning exercise can evolve into an enjoyment of sport for its own sake.
Follow my lead
If you want to encourage good health in your children, there's no point hopping in the car to get the paper, when the shop's barely a three minute walk away! Walk whenever you can - it's great exercise and if you take the kids with you, it can often be the quiet time you need together to chat. Encourage joint family activities as a matter of course - perhaps making Saturday or Sunday the day you all go swimming or play tennis. If your children see you being energetic and active, hopefully they'll view your level of energy as 'the norm' rather than 'the exception'.
