8 Steps To Help Your Family Stay Happy And Healthy
Leading a healthy and active lifestyle is one of the best ways you can improve the health and wellbeing of you and your family.
However, changing your family’s health habits is not always as easy as it sounds, and can be a little daunting. So, we’ve put together ten tips for keeping your family healthy.
1. Eat a balanced diet
Eating a balanced diet is essential for getting enough of the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals your body needs to function properly, as well as maintaining a healthy weight.
Eating well can also have benefits for your family’s well-being, helping to make you feel more alert, energetic, and improving your mood.
A healthy and balanced diet (2), includes plenty of fruits and vegetables (approximately one third of our daily foods), high-fibre or wholegrain starchy foods/carbohydrates (about one third of daily foods), choosing lean meat and reducing processed meat where possible, and choosing fish at least twice a week (one of which ideally being oily fish such as salmon, sardines, or ,mackerel).
Along with this, you should also make sure to stay hydrated throughout the day. Tempting as it is to skip it ahead of a busy day, eating a healthy breakfast which is high in fibre and low in fat and sugar can be an important part of your diet and can set you up for success at school, work, or anything else you’ve got planned.
Meal planning is also a great way to stay on top of what you and your family are eating each week – it can also help you reduce food waste and budget your food shopping.
2. Reduce salt and sugar
According to the World Health Organisation, most people are consuming nearly twice as much as their recommended amount of salt, which is 5 grams per day for adults.
Getting too much sodium in your diet can raise your blood pressure and increase your risk of heart disease and stroke, so it’s important to lower the salt you eat.
Some simple ways to do this is to take salt off the table at mealtimes, swap out salty snacks, and choose products that are lower in salt. Babies should also not eat much salt at all as their still-developing kidneys struggle to process it.
WHO also recommends that adults and children restrict free sugars (that’s the sugar that is added to food and drink) to less than 10% of their daily energy intake – ideally 5%. This works out at about six teaspoons of sugar.
Try to avoid adding sugars to your drinks and cut down on sugary snacks such as cakes and biscuits.
3. Look after your immune health
Supporting the health of your immune system is vital to helping your body fight off infections, bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens.
Apart from generally leading a healthy lifestyle, one way to support your family’s immune health is by ensuring a balanced intake of nutrients that contribute to a healthy immune system, through a healthy diet, possibly complemented by appropriate supplements.
Our Adult Immune Support and Adult Immune Support for those over the age of 12, along with our Children’s Immune Support, and Children’s Multi-Vits + Immune Support are all formulated with vitamin D, which supports the normal functioning of your immune system.
If you’re interested in learning more, try reading our article on how to support your immune system.
4. Get plenty of sleep
Getting the right amount of sleep is essential to your family’s health, particularly for children and teenagers whose growing bodies need the extra energy. That’s why there are different recommended sleep times for different ages.
Sleep has an important role to play in your health, from making you more alert and focused during the day, to supporting your immune functions (8), lowering stress levels and helping to lift your mood.
It can be difficult to make sure everyone in your family gets enough sleep, but you can try to follow better sleep habits.
This might include avoiding late meals, shutting off screens an hour before sleep or other things that you can build into a regular nightly routine.
For a more detailed look into the benefits of sleep, check out our article on sleep and your health.
5. Time outdoors
Staying active is also hugely important to the health of your family. According to WHO , getting a good amount of exercise each day can help reduce your risk of major illness in the long term, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer.
Not only can it improve your physical health, but it also has many benefits for your well-being.
It can increase your alertness and energy levels, as well as calm you down and lift a low mood.
Try going for regular walks with your family, or when you’re going on a short journey, walk or cycle instead of taking the car.
6. Time together
Whether you’re having a cosy night in or trying something new on a day out, finding even small amounts of time to spend together can help to build bonds between your family and encourage kids to explore new interests.
Try planning activities that take turns doing things that each person enjoys. You never know, you might discover a new family tradition.
7. Practice mindfulness
Practising mindfulness looks different for everybody – but ultimately, it’s about finding solace within yourself and appreciating the moment.
For many people, this can be writing in a journal, quietly reading, savouring a meal, meditating, running and so on.
There’s no perfect way to practise mindfulness and everyone is different so don’t be afraid to try different methods in your family if one isn’t helping.
8. Think of yourself as a role model
One of the most important things you can do to improve your family’s health is to be a good role model to them.
By following these tips yourself, you can set the best example for the rest of your family and help instil healthy habits that will last.
In today’s hectic world, it can often be difficult to establish habits or find time for activities that keep your family happy and healthy.
But by taking note of these tips and trying to incorporate them into your lives, you’ll already be taking steps in the right direction.
Bibliography
1. Mind. (2023) ‘Food and Mental Health’. Available at: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/food-and-mental-health/ (Accessed 22 February 2023).
2. NHS. (2022) ‘The Eatwell Guide’. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-guidelines-and-food-labels/the-eatwell-guide/ (Accessed 17 March 2023).
3. World Health Organisation. (2020) ‘Salt Reduction’. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/salt-reduction (Accessed 23 February 2023).
4. Haycock, G., Aperia, A. (1991) ‘Salt and the Newborn Kidney’, Practical Pediatric Nephrology, 5, 65-70. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2025543/ (Accessed 23 March 2023).
5. World Health Organisation. (2020) ‘Healthy Diet’. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-diet (Accessed 23 February 2023).
6. EFSA. (2015) ‘Vitamin D and Contribution to the Normal Function of the Immune System: Evaluation of a Health Claim Pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. (2015)’, EFSA Journal, 13(7). Available at: https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2015.4182 (Accessed 22 February 2023).
7. Aime, M., Calcini, N., Borsa, M. et al. (2022) ‘Paradoxical Somatodendritic Decoupling Supports Cortical Plasticity During REM Sleep’, Science, 376(6594),724-730. Available at: doi: 10.1126/science.abk2734. (Accessed 23 March 2023).
8. Besedovsky, L., Lange, T., Haack, M. (2019) ‘The Sleep-Immune Crosstalk in Health and Disease’, Physiological Reviews, 99(3),1325–1380. Available at: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/epdf/10.1152/physrev.00010.2018 (Accessed 23 March 2023).
9. Ellenbogen, J.M., Payne, J.D., Stickgold, R. (2006) ‘The Role of Sleep in Declarative Memory Consolidation: Passive, Permissive, Active or None?’, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 16(6), 716–722. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959438806001474?via=ihub (Accessed 23 March 2023).
10. World Health Organization. (2022) ‘Physical activity’. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity. (Accessed 23 February 2023).
11. Fox, Dr K. (1999) ‘The Influence of Physical Activity on Mental Well-being’, Public Health Nutrition, 2(3a), 411-418. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3C363AEECE5C8CAC490A585BA29E6BF8/S1368980099000567a.pdf/the-influence-of-physical-activity-on-mental-well-being.pdf (Accessed 23 March 2023).
12. Anderson, E., Shivakumar, G. (2013) ‘Effects of Exercise and Physical Activity on Anxiety’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4(27). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632802/ (Accessed 23 March 2023).
13. Triantafillou, S., Saeb, S., Lattie, E.G., et al. (2019) ‘Relationship Between Sleep Quality and Mood: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study’, JMIR Mental Health, 6(3). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6456824/ (Accessed 23 March 2023).