We spend a lot of time teaching children how to read and write, do maths or learn some random facts from history. Yet, we spend much less time helping them learn the skills around health & fitness that they will probably need for the rest of their lives. I am not a child development expert but children are small adults and the principles around developing healthy behaviours apply to them too.
Live What You Are Teaching – We learn a lot of our behaviour through what we see and then simply copy it. The biggest lesson for your children is how you act. This is not the quick easy solution most parents want to hear, but it is probably the most powerful. I was walking through Battersea Park to a client at 6.30am once when a whole family roller-skated past me, mum, dad and two kids. They were just in the park before school getting some fun exercise in. Imagine how normal being active must feel to those children. You don’t need to become health & fitness obsessed. Just let them see you enjoying a walk, cooking some decent food, exercising or stopping eating when you have had enough.
Don’t Train The Wisdom Out Of Them – Children are growing up in an environment humans have never really experienced before. Food is now everywhere! They can have breakfast, a snack on the way to school, something at break time, lunch, another snack after school, dinner and then something before bed. The modern challenge isn’t simply teaching children what to eat. It is helping them retain the ability to know when they actually need to eat and when they have had enough.
Young children often possess a skill adults spend decades trying to relearn. They can lose interest in food when they have had enough. They leave food on their plate. They can be so busy playing that they aren’t even thinking about food. We should be careful about training this ability out of them. If they are full, they don’t need to clear their plate. Save it for later. Likewise, there is nothing inherently wrong with becoming a little hungry before eating. Hunger doesn’t need to be treated as an emergency.
Let Young Kids Move – Very young children do not need much fitness advice. They need opportunities to move. Let them run, climb, jump, throw things, kick balls, ride scooters and generally cause chaos. The under-fives rugby sessions I used to help with were total anarchy. If I ever ran a kids’ fitness class, I would call it “Herding Cats”.
As they get a little older, I would prioritise variety. Let them swim, run, climb, dance, cycle, throw, catch, kick and try different sports. It is also great if they see you doing different activities and you do some of them together. Try not to become too focused on whether they are “good” at something. Your main job at this stage is to set them up to enjoy movement for life, not develop the perfect ten-year-old athlete.
Teach Food Skills, Not Just Healthy Foods – As children get older, I would focus on giving them lots of food experiences and skills. Let them try different foods and find the nutritious ones they actually like. A child does not have to like broccoli just because it has somehow become the official symbol of healthy eating. With younger children, let them smell unfamiliar foods, touch them, pull them apart and taste a tiny bit. If they decide it is disgusting then perhaps try it again another time. Turning every new food into a battle is a great way to make eating emotionally loaded.
Teach them to serve smaller portions and come back for seconds if they are still hungry. Get them comfortable saving food for later rather than believing every plate has to be cleared. As they get older, you can teach them how to cook and start helping them understand how different foods make them feel. These are skills they can take into adulthood.
Food Is Not The Answer To Everything – Another pattern to think about is how children learn to use food emotionally. Food becomes a reward for good behaviour, a treat after a difficult day or something to do because they are bored. There is nothing wrong with any of these things individually. The problem comes when food becomes the automatic answer to every emotion.
If they are upset, perhaps they need a hug or someone to talk to. If they are bored, go outside, play a game or find something to do. If they have achieved something, sometimes celebrate by doing something fun rather than automatically using food. You aren’t trying to remove the emotional side of food. You are simply teaching them that food is one of several ways they can respond to how they feel.
Help Them Navigate The Online World – By the teenage years, your influence is competing with friends, school, TikTok, Instagram and the rest of the world. This isn’t all bad. A teenager might discover running or weight training online and suddenly become excited about exercise. The problem is that they can also see a completely distorted picture of what normal fitness and normal bodies look like.
Boys interested in building muscle can quickly stumble across influencers using steroids, while girls face their own versions through dieting, body trends, extreme exercise and physiques that may involve genetics, drugs, surgery or simply twenty attempts at taking the perfect photo. You don’t necessarily need to fight their interests. Just help them develop the skills to question what they are seeing and navigate health & fitness for themselves.
What Does This Mean For You?
Your job isn’t to produce a child who eats perfectly, loves every vegetable and is amazing at sport. You are trying to send them into adulthood with some basic health & fitness skills. They enjoy moving their body, have found forms of exercise they like, can recognise when they are hungry or full, have a decent relationship with food and know how to make some sensible choices for themselves.
Your own health & fitness journey is also part of theirs. You do not need to be perfect, or a super athlete. You just need to show them what a healthy life can look like.
Photo – Me coaching some youth Rugby in Brazil, my teenage american football days and my friend Hannah, a parenting coach after her first Hyrox –
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