This time of year brings plenty of changes to normal day-to-day activities. We eat more and move less. But it is possible to stay on track while still enjoying the holiday festivities. The key is to balance healthy choices, stay aware of stressors, make a plan for staying healthy and get the whole family involved. The CDC recommends focusing on four areas to maintain family health: physical activity, nutritional habits, sleep, and screen time.
Family Health
Striking a balance between being active and having fun will help to create a more enjoyable and relaxing holiday experience.
Get The Whole Family Moving
- Physical activity develops stronger muscles and bones, improves heart health, increases blood circulation, and lowers body fat.
- Children ages 3 to 5 years should be active throughout the day.
- Children ages 6 to 17 need at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily.
- Look for ways to blend fun and physical activity as a family.
- If you can get outside, play games like basketball or touch football, walk the dog, or take a nature walk.
- Inside, have a family dance party, play video games that require movement, and encourage everyone to move around and stretch out.
Nutrition
Everyone has go-to foods, treats, and drinks they enjoy during the holidays. Restricting or avoiding these pleasures completely isn’t good, as it can lead to binge eating.
- Eat mindfully and in moderation.
- Making healthy eating a family effort helps everyone reach and keep a healthy weight and sets a healthy example.
- Eat a variety of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, lean proteins, and low-fat and fat-free dairy products.
- Check labels and follow nutrition guidelines.
- Drink plenty of water and real fruit juices instead of sugary drinks.
Maintain Healthy Sleep
- Sleep is essential for optimal brain and body health.
- Healthy sleep helps prevent Type 2 diabetes, injuries, and weight gain.
- Improves mood, concentration, and performance.
- Individuals tend to eat more and be less active when not getting enough sleep.
- Children 6 years old to 12 need between 9 and 12 hours of sleep a night.
- Teens need 8 to 10 hours.
Limit screen time
- Sedentary activities combined with too much screen time can lead to weight gain, sleep problems, and affected mental health.
- Limiting phone, computer, and TV usage maintains mind and body health and generates more time for family activities.
- Turn off electronic devices an hour before bed.
Modeling healthy behaviors and making small lifestyle changes can lead to lifelong healthy habits.
Chiropractic Functional Medicine
Chiropractic functional medicine can improve the body’s neuromusculoskeletal system and enhance overall health. Chiropractic and massage therapies:
- Increase circulation
- Facilitate detoxification
- Balance the distribution of hormones and nutrients
- Regulate the heart’s rhythm
- Soothe the nervous system
- Increase mobility
- Decreased pain
- Increase flexibility
- Serve as a supportive treatment to other kinds of therapeutic care.
Holiday Games
The information herein is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified healthcare professional or licensed physician and is not medical advice. We encourage you to make healthcare decisions based on your research and partnership with a qualified healthcare professional. Our information scope is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, physical medicines, wellness, sensitive health issues, functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We provide and present clinical collaboration with specialists from a wide array of disciplines. Each specialist is governed by their professional scope of practice and their jurisdiction of licensure. We use functional health & wellness protocols to treat and support care for the injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our videos, posts, topics, subjects, and insights cover clinical matters, issues, and topics that relate to and directly or indirectly support our clinical scope of practice.* Our office has reasonably attempted to provide supportive citations and identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We provide copies of supporting research studies available to regulatory boards and the public upon request.
We understand that we cover matters that require an additional explanation of how it may assist in a particular care plan or treatment protocol; therefore, to further discuss the subject matter above, please contact Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, MSACP, CCST, IFMCP*, CIFM*, ATN*
email: coach@elpasofunctionalmedicine.com
Licensed in: Texas & New Mexico*
References
Physical Activity Facts https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/facts.htm
Preventing Childhood Obesity: 4 Things Families Can Do, https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/features/childhood-obesity/index.html
Screen Time vs. Lean Time Infographic, https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/multimedia/infographics/getmoving.html
Tips to Help Children Maintain a Healthy Weight, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/children/index.html
