Parents and Families

Parents are incredibly important to the health of their children at home and at school. Choosing the right foods and helping your child be active can make all the difference. Try these 10 Tips for a Fit Family Summer (or anytime!). Summertime is a great - and easy time - to be active and healthy for kids and adults alike.
  1. Just PLAY! Spend time swimming, swinging, skating, biking, dancing, digging, even walking. Kids need 60 minutes of playtime each day, while adults need 30 minutes.
  2. Take regular family walks, hikes, bike rides, or runs. Try different parks in your community for a change of scenery.
  3. Be sure to have plenty of water available when playing outdoors or doing other physical activity.
  4. Provide a variety of low-fat and fat-free dairy, fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If these are new to your kids, let them start with "one taste".
  5. Limit screen time - no more than 2 hours of TV, gaming or computer time a day.
  6. Enter your family to walk in a local parade, festival, and/or charity walk/run.
  7. Parents are role models. If you want your kids to drink their milk and eat their veggies, you get to do that too!
  8. Think of food as fuel. Help kids think of their stomachs as gas tanks. Don’t overflow your gas tank... or your belly!
  9. Have cut-up veggies and fruits from your local Farmer’s Market in the fridge for quick, healthy snacks. If you can’t find fresh, frozen are next best.
  10. Get your kids involved in deciding what your family eats. Let them help plan, prepare and cook meals. Yes, let them taste test too!
Check out these other great and easy ideas

Choose Better Food
Choose Better Food (Spanish version)
Make Great Kids Meals
Healthy Snacks for Healthy Kids
Get Fit and Physical
Create a Family ACTion Plan

Parents Advocating for School Wellness
Creating healthier schools requires the engagement and commitment of numerous stakeholders, especially in underserved communities where multiple challenges confront millions of children and families every day. Recognizing parents as a largely untapped force for change in school wellness, Action for Healthy Kids, in collaboration with MEE Productions, has produced a Parents Advocating for School Wellness toolkit.

The toolkit is designed to help Action for Healthy Kids Teams and other school wellness advocates unlock the potential of parents as change agents and engage them as partners in support of healthier schools for their children. This kit will help users:
  • Understand how to cultivate parents as school wellness advocates, and how to connect with them and communicate effectively;
  • Recruit parent advocates;
  • Train parents on the importance of good nutrition and physical activity;
  • Provide specific ways parents can work effectively with schools to promote wellness; and
  • Connect with community partners and schools.
Through this toolkit, parents and other caring adults can become better informed about the importance of school wellness and be motivated to promote school wellness in their local school and community.

Download Materials
Click here to download a complete Parents Advocating for School Wellness toolkit.

The following sections of the Parents Advocating for School Wellness toolkit can be downloaded separately:
The following customizable materials from the toolkit can be downloaded separately (blank posters have a box at the bottom that can be customized by inserting a meeting date, location and time, or other message):