What are you teaching your kids?

Take a close look at your every day life and you’ll discover that many of the habits, routines, interests and enjoyments you experience today are things that your parents introduced to you when you were a child.

It’s true; we learn a majority of our behaviors and habits from our parents. From manners to housekeeping, work ethics to eating, the things our parents taught us and allowed us to do (and not to do) have helped shaped the kind of adult we became. And guess what; if you are the parent of a young, impressionable child, YOU are now the person who is teaching behaviors and habits that will quite possibly stick with your child for the rest of their life. The question is, do you realize what you’re teaching them?

According to the December 1, 2008 issue of Time magazine, 67 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, which comes as no surprise because 40 percent of us never exercise. A scary 27 percent of us are struggling with high blood pressure. And a staggering 96 percent of us rarely eat vegetables! When you take a look at America as a whole, we the people are mostly unhealthy and unmotivated to live a healthy lifestyle.

Here’s the worst news of all. Experts are now predicting that today’s generation of children will be the first to have a shorter lifespan than their parents. In fact, Americans as a nation, are living shorter lives and suffering more infant-mortality than many other developed nations on the planet. Why? Because we’re refusing to get healthy and in the process we’re teaching these bad habits to our kids.

But there is hope.

You can break the cycle of an unhealthy lifestyle a lot easier than you think. Start by knowing that you can’t totally change your eating, exercising and health habits overnight—but YOU CAN start to take small and easy steps towards healthier living by changing one or two things each month.

Good ways to start include:

Adding one extra helping of fresh vegetables to your diet each day.

Park further away from the door and choose to take the steps, not the elevator.

Thirsty? Drink a glass of water with a lemon wedge instead of a regular or diet soda beverage.

Make a pact with a friend to take a ten minute walk before or after work each day.

If you’re a smoker, eliminate one cigarette from your habit each day.

Make an appointment for you and your kids to see a chiropractor for a spine evaluation and regular chiropractic adjustments. A spine free of misalignments will allow your brain to clearly communicate to all of your body’s organs and systems, which in return will help your body to achieve its optimal health—inside and out.

Now these are the kinds of habits we want our children to learn.