Healthy Habits Help Families Start New School Year

After a change of pace during summer break, many families settle back into a routine when the school year starts. This makes it a good time to establish healthy habits that benefit parents as well as children.

Graham A. Colditz, Ph.D., associate director of prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine in St. Louis, offers several tips that can help set up everyone for a happy and successful school year.

Get set for sleep success. Good sleep is an amazing foundation for the whole family. It helps with mood, concentration and many other aspects of health and wellness. Teens need about eight to 10 hours a night. Younger school kids need around nine to 12 hours. Get on a healthy sleep schedule by keeping to a set bedtime and wake-up time — and think about giving it a test run the days before school starts.

Celebrate snacks. Snacking often can be seen as negative. But healthy snacks actually can be super for kids — and parents. On top of vitamins, minerals and other healthy ingredients, they can provide energy for schoolwork and after-school activities and help keep kids from getting too hungry between meals. Pair foods such as whole-wheat crackers, sliced apples or mini-carrots with hummus, nuts or peanut butter. And try to really limit unhealthy snacks such as cookies, candy, chips, jerky and sugary soda.

Plan a meal together. Plan a healthy meal with your kids and cook it together. This can help kids build skills and feel ownership of healthy eating, and that can pay off into their adulthood. Cooking together also can be a relaxed opportunity for parents and kids to catch up on the day and talk about what’s going on at school and with friends. Start with a single meal and then consider adding others throughout the year.

Highlight water. Beverage cases have more options than ever, but the best and healthiest choice for kids remains the simplest — water. Soda, energy drinks and fruit drinks are filled with sugar and calories, and very little that’s healthy. Plain water from the tap or bottle- filling station is the easiest and healthiest way to go.

Check in on well-child appointments. A well-child visit with a pediatrician or other health-care provider is a great opportunity to check in on kids’ overall growth and health, get caught up on important vaccines and discuss any questions parents may have about their kids’ health.

Keep an eye on screen time. Kids need screens for school and many other activities. Too much screen time, though, can affect many different aspects of health and wellness. Try to limit unnecessary time on phones and computers, and encourage kids toward other activities, such as being with friends, taking part in after-school programs or just having some unstructured, unplugged time.

Make space for activity. It can sound like a lot, but kids should get around 60 minutes of physical activity a day. Even in the busy opening days of the school year, it’s hard to overstate its benefits. What’s fantastic is that most types of movement count, from dance and sports practice to bike rides and gardening, to walking to the school bus and just playing with friends at a park. It all adds up, and any amount of activity is better than none.

–Alan Goforth