Even during a pandemic children still need to take part in physical activity, eat healthily to maintain their strength and to help them grow, have positive mental health and be able to fight off infections.
Tips to encourage physical activity
Did you know that it’s recommended that children take part in 60 minutes of physical activity a day? This is the guidance from the UK’s Chief Medical Officer. Physical activity also supports children to manage their feelings and behaviour.
These 60 minutes don’t have to be all at once. They can be broken down into different chunks throughout the day, for example:
- 5 blocks of 10 minutes
- 4 blocks of 15 minutes or
- 1 block of 30 minutes and then 2 blocks of 10 minutes
These activity breaks are great for burning excess energy, which helps to reduce challenging behaviour and can refocus the mind when learning.
We have some helpful links with advice to help to break up the day and get your children moving:
The Daily Mile at home setting out weekly challenges to keep children active throughout the week.
Change4life have lots of activities and are linked to children’s loved Disney characters.
Or how about starting the day with PE with The Body Coach and get about 30 minutes done first thing in the morning.
Tips to encourage healthy eating
Having a good routine around meal time will support children’s health and wellbeing. A way to ensure your child is maintaining a healthy balanced diet is to have a routine around meals and snack time just like they would in school, for example:
- Breakfast between 7:30 and 8:30am
- Mid-morning snack at 10:30am
- Lunch between 12pm and 1pm
- Afternoon snack at 3pm
- Tea between 5pm and 6pm
Also, cooking is a great life skill that children at school don’t get much chance to learn. Now is a great opportunity to let them help you with their meals and this could form part of your home learning. We have some great cook-a-long videos from your school catering team, Let’s Dine.
Here are some tips to eating well:
- Make sure you’re all eating your five-a-day – 2 portions of fruit and 3 portions of vegetables – eating food with lots of colours ensures you get a variety of vitamins and minerals.
- Limit the amount of sugary snacks and drinks you’re all having. This includes fruit which contains natural sugars. It’s recommended children should have no more than 30 grams of sugar per day at the age of 11 years and upwards. Check out the Change4life’s Sugar Calculator to see how much sugar your child might be having.
Struggling for meal ideas? Take a look at these websites that have tons of healthy, fun recipes to try: