Family Fit Plan: A 30-Day Wellness Transformation
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Family Fit Plan: A 30-Day Wellness Transformation
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781610023382 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | American Academy of Pediatrics |
| Publication date: | 12/03/2019 |
| Edition description: | None |
| Pages: | 220 |
| Sales rank: | 1,062,032 |
| Product dimensions: | 7.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Success Through Family Buy-in and Social Support
Deciding it is time to help your family boost health, fitness, and happiness is the first step in starting the plan. Creating a strategy to accomplish this is key. But first, consider
* Why do you want to start this plan?
* How much room do you have in your life right now for disrupting the old routines and creating new ones?
* Are you ready to go from wanting to change to making a change?
* Do you have family buy-in?
After you have given these questions some thought, check in with your family. I suggest you do this by scheduling a family meeting. If you commit to having regular family meetings, not only will you see better results from the Family Fit Plan, but you also get the added benefit of a stronger family bond, better communication, and improved self-esteem and problem-solving in your kids. Hopefully you are convinced that family meetings are worth a try. As you get ready to kick off your Family Fit Plan with your first family meeting, consider these tips for running an effective family meeting.
How to Run a Family Meeting
1 Consistency. Schedule family meetings for the same time each week. Kids thrive on routines and consistency. If you have your family meeting on the same day and time each week, your kids will come to expect it and be more likely to participate. Choose a day and time and stick with it as much as you can (at least for the next several weeks). For many families, an after-dinner Sunday evening meeting works best to get ready for the coming week.
2 Keep it short. Plan for your meetings to be brief — no more than about 20 minutes. Any longer than that and the kids (and maybe adults, too) will lose interest.
3 Follow an agenda. Have a plan or purpose for each family meeting. Start the meeting by sharing the purpose of the meeting and what you plan to accomplish.
4 Set ground rules. Ask your family members to help you set ground rules. Be sure to write them down. Sample rules include allowing only one person to talk at a time; considering everyone's opinion; and using "I" statements when expressing concerns (eg, "I am having a hard time understanding what you mean," rather than, "What you are saying doesn't make sense"). Rules like these help meetings to stay productive, upbeat, and positive rather than argumentative and frustrating.
5 Make attendance voluntary. Encourage, but don't require, attendance at your family meeting. Try to make meetings fun so everyone will want to come, but don't force attendance. Some ideas to up the fun factor include playing music at the beginning and involving kids in helping to set and present the agenda.
6 Take notes. Ask for a volunteer "scribe" to take notes for each meeting. These summaries will come in handy at future meetings.
7 Rotate the leader. Take turns with who leads the meeting. This keeps it interesting and gives older kids and adolescents an opportunity to learn how to lead an effective meeting.
Your First Family Fit Plan Meeting: Getting Buy-in
Your first Family Fit Plan meeting gives you a chance to gauge how interested other family members are in starting a new health and fitness plan. Gather everyone together, and follow these steps to get a sense of who in your family is ready for your family wellness transformation and who may need encouragement.
[check] Fun opener. Start your meeting with a fun activity to help everyone get warmed up. For example, play some music to dance to, ask everyone to share what was the best part of their day or what they like the best about themselves, or start with a joke.
[check] Purpose. Share that the point of this meeting is to talk about starting a health and fitness plan. You want to see if your kids are interested in joining you to do it as a family.
[check] How. There are many ways that their involvement will benefit them. For example, kids who get at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day, sleep 9 to 11 hours each night, and engage in no more than 2 hours per day of recreational screen time score higher on tests of language skills, memory, planning ability, and speed at completing mental tasks compared with kids who don't. Only 5% of kids get enough activity and sleep and not too much screen time. Studies show that nearly 1 in 3 do none of the above. Maybe kids would be more open to trying to see if they could be in the 5%.
[check] Why. Kids and adults will be more fit and healthy. When parents are coached and guided in how to help their children succeed, the family succeeds as a whole. For example, studies show that when parents increase physical activity and decrease inactive (screen) time, reduce saturated fat intake, decrease exposure to unhealthful foods, change the home environment, and practice parenting skills, not only does the child benefit, but the parent improves health habits, loses weight, and decreases cardiovascular disease risk factors.
[check] Complete a Family SWOT Analysis. One way to see where your family currently stands before starting the Family Fit Plan is to complete a SWOT Analysis: a tool that businesses often use as they are pursuing new opportunities: a strength, weakness, opportunities, and threat (SWOT) analysis (Figure 1.1).
[check] Activity. If your family is interested, choose one of the following activities to do together: What's Your "Why"?, "Best Possible Family," or "How Well Does Your Family Function" in this chapter. If your kids are not yet on board, close the family meeting by asking them to think about it because you would love for them to be a part of it. Also tell them that you as the parent are ready to make some changes, so they may notice some things at home that you control may be different — but in a good way.
[check] Closing. Close the family meeting by summarizing what you learned from the experience and list the next steps.
Complete a Family SWOT Analysis
As with everything discussed throughout the book, the best first step to making any change is to do a baseline assessment of where things stand today. One way to asses this is with a tool that businesses often use as they are pursuing new opportunities: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis.
Strengths include assets your family has that will help you be successful. These might include things such as adventurous eating habits, a routine of eating family meals, consistent schedules, strong supports, excellent sleep habits, or skill in cooking.
Weaknesses are challenge areas, or things that might make it more difficult for your family while you go through this project. These might be things such as very busy or chaotic schedules, dislike for exercise or healthful foods, food restrictions or very picky eating preferences, or inability or dislike of cooking.
Opportunities include things that might help you succeed with the plan, such as having a grocery store with healthful foods or a park or school nearby, access to cooking classes, or access to free or discounted membership to an athletic program or gym.
Threats are things that might get in the way of succeeding with your healthful changes. This could be a family member who is not on board with the changes or who may intentionally or unintentionally sabotage your efforts. It could be a disruption to the schedule, such as a job change, holidays, vacation, or change in season (eg, summer break).
Consider your family's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats while you plan for and implement your Family Fit Plan (see Figure 1.1, which is also available in the Appendix). This will help you make goals and action plans that optimize your strengths and opportunities, strengthen your weaknesses, and avoid or plan for the threats. You will refer back to your family SWOT analysis later (Chapter 3).
Activity: What's Your "Why"?
Why do you want to do the Family Fit Plan? The answer to this question may be different for each family member. By following the process outlined here, together you can come up with an overall guiding statement that will help you clearly define your family's "why." Knowing your individual "why" statements will help you tailor the plan over the coming weeks.
* Make a list. Ask everyone to come up with a list of what they'd like to get out of this plan. Ask each person to answer the question, "What do you hope to learn or do over the next 30 days?" Try not to censor or evaluate what anyone answers. For now, just add it to the list.
* Identify themes. Did specific goals or themes come up multiple times? For example, did a few family members mention wanting to eat better or find ways to be more active? Choose 2 or 3 themes that seem to be most important for your family.
* Write down your "why." Ask, "Why is this important to you?" Pull it all together and write down all "why" statements. For example, for some people it might be to avoid or treat a disease — "We need to eat healthier and be more active because we are at risk for diabetes, and we don't want that." For others it may be to strengthen family relationships and educate the family on what healthy looks like — "We want to raise our children to be healthy, adventurous, and happy." Or perhaps it is to address a current crisis — "We all need to sleep better, eat without constant mealtime battles, and put some limits around screen time."
If your kids or other family members are reluctant, you can reframe the Family Fit Plan from a focus on nutrition, physical activity, sleep, screens, and stress to an adventure that will create opportunities for the family to try new things together: "It's kind of like an experiment. We can just test it out and see if any of the ideas work for us. If we don't like it, when it's done we don't have to keep doing it. Or maybe there will be parts that we like, and we can keep doing those things." Many kids will be receptive to this approach.
Activity: "Best Possible Family"
Envision your ideal, or "best possible family," by the end of the 30 days. This borrows from a concept in positive psychology known as your "best possible self" that helps to improve positive emotions, happiness, optimism, and coping skills.
Think about your family in the future. What is the best possible family you can imagine?
1 Consider all parts of your family life — how you spend time together, schedules, behaviors, relationships, nutrition, activity, sleep, and stress management. What do each of these areas look like in your family's best possible future?
2 Set a timer for 5 minutes. For the next 5 minutes, write about or draw a picture of your "best possible family." Focus on the future rather than the present or the past. The more specific you are, the more you will gain from the activity. Give extra thought to those areas in which you have the most control and where your actions can have the greatest effect.
3 Discuss what each family member wrote or drew.
4 Ask everyone to close their eyes for a minute and visualize your family as the described "best possible family." Envision a day in your future life when your family life resembles your ideal.
Activity: How Well Does Your Family Function?
High-functioning families tend to eat better, engage in physical activity more often, and spend less time sitting around. How well does your family function? Together, complete the General Functioning Subscale of the McMaster Family Assessment Device (Figure 1.2) to find out. Answer based on your family as a whole. Family members may feel differently than each other when answering the questions; however, you should do your best to come to a consensus for each question.
Scoring
The questionnaire is scored by summing the numbers for each box you checked in questions 1 through 12. Then divide the sum by 12. Scores range from 1.0 (best functioning) to 4.0 (worst functioning).
If you find that there are areas for improvement, come up with a plan for how you might function better. If you find that there are many challenges, or it is difficult to come up with a plan to get along better, you might consider reaching out to a professional who specializes in helping families thrive.
Source: Used with permission by Epstein NB, Baldwin LM, Bishop DS. The McMaster Family Assessment Device. J Marital Fam Ther. 1983;9(2):171–180.
It Takes a Village ...
Although your immediate family may play the leading role in helping to make and sustain changes, the larger social network that you turn to in helping you raise your family and care for your own mental and physical health is also important. That support can come to you either in person or online from many places — your kids' pediatrician; grandparents, friends, neighbors; religion, school, or work, for example. Nurturing and expanding these relationships, and troubleshooting how to deal with challenges sometimes posed by a social network, can help your family make lasting change.
As the highly respected late pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, MD, noted, "Families need families. Parents need to be parented. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are back in fashion because they are necessary. Stresses on many families are out of proportion to anything two parents can handle."
Your Kids' Pediatrician Pediatricians recognize the struggles and stresses that parents face and want to partner with their patients' parents to help a child grow up healthy and happy.
There are 5 family-level protective factors for a child's good health:
* Parental resilience (managing life and parenting stress and functioning well in times of adversity)
* Social connections (having healthy relationships with people, institutions, community, or spirituality)
* Knowledge of parenting and child development (implementing developmentally appropriate best parenting practices)
* Concrete support in times of need (identifying, accessing, advocating for, and receiving needed services to promote healthy development)
* Social and emotional competence of children (providing an environment and experiences that help children develop close and secure relationships and learn to regulate and express emotions in a productive way)
Pediatricians are increasingly well versed in these factors and can help you identify your strengths and provide you with tools and resources to help you improve.
One way to tap into the pediatrician's experience as a part of your village is to come to well-child visits (also known as health supervision visits) with a plan to get the most out of your time together. Your child's growth, development, nutrition, activity, screen time, sleep, and behavior are monitored at every well-child visit, which should occur annually for children 3 years and older and more frequently for children younger than 3 years (generally at birth, age 2 to 4 weeks, and at 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 24, and 30 months). Consider answering the questions in the previsit checklist in Figure 1.3 (and in the Appendix) before your next visit. Even if you don't bring this list with you to the visit, it helps you to get a sense of what is going well and where you might have questions that the pediatrician can help answer.
When you are at the visit, ask to see your child's growth chart, and ask for your pediatrician's interpretation of the height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) percentile curves (or weight-for-length percentile for kids younger than 2 years). Each of these curves provides significant information about your child's health.
Height curve: After about age 3 years, a child's height tends to track along a fairly consistent height percentile. As a rule of thumb, you can expect your boy's height as an adult to be (mom's height [inches] + 5 inches + dad's height [inches]/2 and your girl's height as an adult to be (mom's height [inches] + dad's height [inches] – 5 inches)/2 plus or minus a couple of inches.
Weight curve: A child's weight is affected by many factors, but most often weight concerns are due to too little or too much caloric intake. A pediatrician will track your child's weight gain to try to identify early on if there are concerns in too little or too much gain from year to year.
Figure 1.4 shows growth and weight changes you can expect based on your child's age and stage of development.
Body mass index percentile: Body mass index is a measure of height and weight. The formula for BMI is weight (in kilograms) divided by height (in meters) squared. The formula is used as a way of estimating a person's body fat. For adults, the BMI number helps to indicate health risk. An adult with a BMI greater than 25 is considered to be overweight, while those with a BMI greater than 30 are considered to have obesity. Because children are continually growing and experience spurts at certain ages (eg, a typical child will have a decrease in BMI around 4 years and then progressively increase throughout childhood), BMI percentile is plotted on an age-and gender-appropriate growth chart to assess if the child is at a healthy weight (Figure 1.5).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Family Fit Plan"
by .
Copyright © 2020 American Academy of Pediatrics.
Excerpted by permission of American Academy of Pediatrics.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
Part 1 Getting Ready 1
Chapter 1 Success Through Family Buy-in and Social Support 3
How to Run a Family Meeting 3
Your First Family Fit Plan Meeting: Getting Buy-in 4
Complete a Family SWOT Analysis 5
Activity: What's Your "Why"? 6
Activity: "Best Possible Family" 7
Activity: How Well Does Your Family Function? 7
It Takes a Village 8
Family Meeting: Secure Success Through Family Buy-in and Social Support 20
Chapter 2 The Starting Line 21
Nutrition: How Does Your Family Actually Eat? 21
Physical Activity: What's Your Current Activity Level? 27
Sleep: Your Family's Starting Point 33
Screen Time: Your Family's Starting Point 35
Stress: Your Family's Starting Point 35
Family Meeting: The Starting Line 37
Chapter 3 On Your Mark…Get Set…Goal! 39
Goal Setting 39
Nutrition: What and How We Should Eat 42
Physical Activity Recommendations 47
Sleep 56
Screen Time 57
Stress Management 58
Pulling It All Together: Your Family Fit Plan 60
Family Meeting: SMART Goals and Action Steps 67
Part 2 The Family Fit Plan 69
Chapter 4 Week 1: A Nutrition and Mealtime Makeover 71
Take a Responsive Parenting Approach to Food and Mealtimes 71
A 5-Step Nutrition and Mealtime Makeover 73
Family Meeting: Nutrition and Mealtimes 84
Chapter 5 Week 2: Mastering Mindfulness 85
Mindfulness Around Mealtimes 85
Mindfulness Training 91
Family Meeting: Mastering Mindfulness 96
Chapter 6 Week 3: Outsmarting the 6 Ss 97
Snacks 97
Sweets 100
Sugary Drinks 101
Screen Time 102
Sleep Disruptors 104
Slick Sales and Marketing 105
Family Meeting: Outsmarting the 6 Ss 109
Chapter 7 Week 4: Savoring and Celebrating Success 111
Celebrate 112
Pat Yourself on the Back 113
Share Your Positive Experiences With Each Other 113
Make New Memories Together 114
Slow Down Time 114
Count Your Blessings 115
Absorb Yourself in the Moment 116
Sharpen Your Senses 116
Compare 122
Family Meeting: Savoring and Celebrating Success 123
Part 3 Post-plan 125
Chapter 8 Post-plan: Making Changes That Stick 127
Family Fit Plan Check-in 127
Now What? 128
Create Your Family Rules to Live By 128
Being Open to Change 129
Family Meeting: Making Changes That Stick 133
Appendix-Recipes, Reinforcement Planners, and Workouts 135
Recipes 137
Reinforcement Planners 185
Workouts 203
Resources 209
References 213
Index 215