The 4 types of wellness for children

Wellness is an intervention that promotes a healthy lifestyle and prevents diseases.

As you know, physical and mental well-being in children comes from healthy practices like physical activity, vaccination against diseases, proper nutrition, and a healthy social environment.

The following areas are a great start for teaching children about wellness:

Intellectual Wellness

The best way to teach wellness is to introduce new and innovative ways of learning to your kids.

Take your child to a zoo, park, kids museum, an interactive event or a library. Interactive ways of learning enhance your child’s knowledge and help improve the child’s overall personal and social behavior.

Ensure that you limit the screen time of gadgets to half an hour. There should be a rationale for the things that the child watches. Television and computer time should be monitored and timed. It has been found that there is a correlation between screen time and obesity. But more importantly, screens cause us to limit ourselves intellectually. We are our children’s role models, so the more time we spend in front of the screen, the more our children would learn those behaviors. 

Emotional Wellness 

Children are more sensitive than adults and will reciprocate the adult’s emotions. Stress takes a heavy emotional toll on children, and it’s best to remove a child from the stressful environment. Even if it might not be stressful for the child, your child can comprehend that it’s stressful for you. Learning healthy coping mechanisms to stress early in life can help lessen fear and anxiety in adulthood. A happier environment leads to an emotionally healthy child. And an enriching and stimulating environment at home fosters healthy growth and brain development. You can do this by providing the child with love, emotional support and opportunities for learning and exploration. 

Social Wellness

Social interactions and social activities, including interacting with other children and participating in stage activities, enhance cognitive development in the child, boosting their self-esteem and confidence. They also strengthen their learning and communication skills.

As a parent, you can promote the social well-being of your child by creating opportunities for them to make friends. Your child’s social interaction can make them learn manners, resolve conflicts, and listen to others. 

Physical Wellness

A healthy body and a healthy mind work in tandem. Physical activity not only supports the physical health of your child but also helps in their intellectual development. Proper nutrition and physical activity are obvious ways to improve our physical well-being.

With so many articles and different opinions on proper nutrition and the right levels of activity, it’s tough to make choices for your children and even harder when teaching them about how those choices affect their wellness. Early childhood is when we need to develop healthy habits necessary to live healthy lives as adults. 

Eating Better (For Children and Their Families) 

Children who have meals with their families tend to eat healthier foods and, as a result, are at a lower risk of developing obesity. However, those children who have meals while watching TV have improper food choices. As a parent, you play an important role in shaping your child’s eating habits. You have a major influence over this. Children don’t realize when they are hungry, so we need to cater to their needs, and create a mealtime pattern.

Here are some ideas to help with your child’s food choices:

• Have a regular meal and snack time. Eat together as a family. 

• Avoid pressurizing your child to eat. 

• Avoid using food as a reward or punishment. 

• Have healthy foods at home. 

• Babies and children with special needs may require special diets – some to help with their medical conditions, others to help them either gain or lose weight. 

• Do not put your child on restricted diets unless it’s recommended by a health care professional and done under a physician’s supervision. 

• Be sensitive to the needs of children and adolescents who are overweight. If your child is being teased or is embarrassed to participate in physical activities, talk to your child and teach them coping strategies. 

• Try for lifelong behavioral changes. Children should avoid short-term diets and physical activity programs aimed at rapid weight loss. Behavioral changes should be brought about through positive reinforcement by the family.

Dr Anand Bhattar
Consultant Neonatologist and Paediatrician
Bal Gopal Children Hospital, Raipur