Too many parents seem to be dealing with the challenge of entertaining their kids during the summer holidays by exposing them to a deadly combination of inactivity and consumerism. I mean those trips to the malls. What appalls me is the amount of sugar sliding down those little throats, in the form of ice cream, brownies, mithais and, yeah, fizzy drinks.
Anything more than two teaspoons of sugar a day—and more than one sweet treat per child per week—is asking for trouble. When you see your kid bouncing high enough to hit the ceiling one moment but so down the next that the only thing he’s good for is a tantrum, don’t blame him, blame yourself: It’s the standard neurological response to excess sugar.
What you should be doing this summer is turning your child into a fat-burning machine. Here a are a few things you can start doing:
- Learn how to do a safe handstand (from a good yoga teacher, for example) and do it with your children at home, with the support of a wall. That will teach them all-important ‘balance’ and also give them a different perspective of the living room.
- Climb the stairs in your building together if you live in one, and push each other to climb faster. To add variety, climb two steps at a time, graduate to three and then learn to jump with both your legs as you climb up. But when you’re going down, let your kids jump, and check the status of your joints before you follow suit.
- Using a pot to water plants is a great way to build shoulder and upper back strength (your kids will need that to hold their heads high).
There’s so much else you can do: biking trips, the zoo, treks, swimming, dancing. But it doesn’t work if you don’t do your own bit to make fat-burning look cool. The one thing you should avoid is sermons on staying fit, especially those that begin with, “When we were young....”
(A new, fortnightly column on nutrition and fitness, by the best-selling author of Don’t Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight)
