July is National Make a Difference to a Child Month so I decided to focus on that for this week’s topic. Children are so important to the future and we have to teach them and guide them on how to live healthy lives and make good decisions. So as always, our focus in this article will be teaching children about living a healthy lifestyle.

Teaching children about the importance of fruits and vegetables in their diet is one of the best places to start. The base of a healthy lifestyle starts with what you put in your mouth. For the most part, children today don’t understand why they should eat fruits and vegetables and how eating healthy affects their body. Another problem is that a lot of adults don’t fully understand this either so it’s hard for them to teach their children. So I found this article from The American Heart Association where they provide tips for teaching kids how to eat to be heart healthy. The rest of the website has some great information as well.

Staying active is another important part of living a healthy lifestyle. When I was younger, my parents always required that I be a part of some type of sport or activity. I never understood why until I grew up and realized how important being active was to being healthy. And of course just telling your child they need to be active doesn’t impact them as much if you aren’t active too. As they say ‘a family that plays together stays together’. So read this article from the USA Today and find some great way to stay active and have fun this summer as a family. Feel free to share your own ideas in the comments section.

As we know, children get tired of listening to their parents sometimes and would rather take tips from their peers. So if you’re having trouble getting through to your child, share with these tips from students Cuesta College in California. These students came up with some great ways to eat healthy while in college and the tips can also be applied to younger students who are still at home. Or you can encourage your child to take a cooking class like these students in California who are learning to cook with vegetables. When a child learns to do something themselves they become more invested in it and more prone to do it. Who know, you may even find you’ve had an amateur chef living in your home.

A new study reported by CBS, shows that poor diets may be causing a rise in strokes among the younger generations. The percentage of people ages 20-45 who had a stoke in 2005 was up 7.3% – from 1993-94 when it was 4.5%. With more and more studies like this one coming out, we are realizing how important it is to educated our youth on good nutrition.

With that in mind, the following three articles are highlighted below because of their educational aspects.

We all know what the diet of a college student consists of – pizza, ramen noodles, and beer. And rarely do you see a single vegetable on one of those pizzas. Well Northwestern University decided to educate their student body a little on good nutrition. The University shared some great tips on how the students can improve their diets while having a limited cash flow. A lot of people are feeling the strains of limited cash flow at the moment so everyone may benefit from what Northwestern University has to say.

The ABC news segment, The View from the Bay, shared some interesting information on good fats vs. bad fats. They tell you that adding a healthy fat to every meal, such as oil, olives, nuts, or dark chocolate, is a great idea. But keep in mind that a little goes a long way!

This last article is a great one but I honestly feel this should be common sense. Business Week shares a study done by Duke University that suggests a good diet and regular exercise may help the mind function better. This makes complete sense! We’ve all hit that midday lull where you can’t focus on anything for longer than 30 seconds. But once we get a healthy lunch in us, we have some energy and our brains start functioning again. And we all love that feeling we get after some moderate exercise. Read the full article at BusinessWeek.com, you’ll think this should be common sense too.

Share your thoughts and comments in the Comment Section. Thanks!