How to keep your child healthy: Top 5 health apps for kids
Instilling a healthy mindset in your children early on is incredibly important; you can set them up for a lifetime of healthy choices. Your children may develop their healthy mindset sooner than we previously thought! Recent research in the New England Journal of Medicine illustrated that a child’s “destiny weight” is determined by age 5. Half of the children in the study he started were obese when they entered kindergarten and were still obese in the eighth grade!
Most parents realize it’s important to raise a healthy child, but it’s hard to teach them (or get them to play outside) when they’re always playing games on their phones or game systems (most likely applies to young adolescents). ). One way to implement a healthy mindset is to use that technology to your advantage! Check out our list of 5 of the best free health/fitness apps for kids; all available for iOS!
1. Max’s Plate: This app helps kids learn their basic food groups. The timed game has kids place the specific food into one of five food groups for the most points to help them understand what a well-balanced meal is! This app is for younger kids and is a great way to teach nutrition in a fun way!
2. Eat-And-Move-O-Matic: This app is great for everyone (not just kids). It shows you the amount of calories in the food you eat and the corresponding duration of the specific exercises you would have to do to burn those calories! For example, if you eat medium fries (4 oz, 370 calories), it will take almost 2 hours of jumping on a trampoline for it to go away. It’s a way of understanding that healthy eating habits correlate with less work required to burn those calories!
3. Awesome Eats – Awesome Eats is a fun and engaging game where you sort healthy foods to earn points (60+ levels). It can help instill a healthy mindset in kids because it also features a ton of interesting healthy nutrition tips! This app is great because it introduces kids to new foods and encourages them to try new things!
4. NFL Play 60: Talk about getting your kid off the couch; you really have to run, jump and do quick turns to play this game! This endless runner app allows you to collect coins throughout the game that will help you unlock new NFL characters and teams! It is only available on iPhone 4S, iPod 5, iPad 2 and all newer models.
5. MotionMaze: Just like the NFL Play 60 app, this app will also get your kid off the couch! It’s a puzzle game where you have to help the Captain to find the hidden treasure! You have to physically walk/run in place to navigate the maze! Literally making you get off the couch!
All of these apps are great because they teach your child about nutrition or really get them moving; either way it’s a win situation! The next time you’re having trouble teaching your child proper nutrition or trying to get him outside, try these apps to get him motivated; Or you can always take the phone away from them!