Keeping Your Family Fit Indoors During The Winter

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From Your Health Journal…..”Getting the family outdoors in the colder months is a tough task for many of us. Trying to keep fit and healthy as a family is sometimes another challenge. Many children and their parents do become very sedentary over the Winter months. But, with a little creativity, you can motivate your family to get moving. This article gives some excellent ideas to follow. Some ideas I like are taking the family to the local indoor mall for a long walk browsing the store windows, commercial-cizing (exercise during commercial breaks), indoor fitness scavenger hunts, and indoor obstacle courses. I recommend this article to everyone, as it gives some excellent ideas to experiment that may help keep your family healthy this Winter.”

From the article…..

Does the cold weather outside have you wanting to curl up on your couch and take a long winter’s nap?

According to Beverly Anderson, Executive Director of Ebenezer Child Care Centers with locations in Milwaukee, Mequon, Greenfield, Oak Creek, and Wauwatosa, “Just because it may be getting chilly outside doesn’t mean that you should make staying active any less of a priority for your family. Children from toddler age on up need to have at least 30 minutes of structured physical activity every day to help foster healthy development and to keep sedentary habits from taking hold.”

So how can you keeping everyone moving during the winter months? Here are some useful tips.

Dance the Night Away
A very easy way to get the family moving together is to simply turn on the radio or your child’s favorite CD and start dancing. Dancing can quickly get your heart rate up while you have lots of fun together. While you’re at it, you can also teach your child to hop, skip, spin, do jumping jacks, and march by playing a fun game of follow the leader to dance music!

Head to the Basement
If your basement is unfinished, it can be the perfect place for active indoor activities such as roller skating, riding scooters, throwing and rolling light-weight balls, jumping rope, and setting up obstacle courses. Use the open space to your advantage, and encourage your children to get active!

Play Games
It may seem like an oxymoron, but there are actually some video games out there that can help get your older children moving. The Wii Fit exercise board and Dance Party Revolution video games are both excellent examples of fun activities that encourage older kids to get up off of the couch. There are also other non-video games out there such as Twister, musical chairs, and tag that older children often enjoy participating in.

Utilize Community Resources
Take advantage of the Milwaukee County Parks system, and go sledding or ice skating outside. Or, if you want to stay indoors, consider skating at the Pettit Ice Center. This facility also has an indoor track you can walk or run on. Another fun indoor physical activity is hitting one of the many bowling alleys in Milwaukee for a game of bowling.

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