Description

Tips for Getting Active

Everyday Physical Activity Tips

Small steps that get your family to move more can help all of you maintain a healthy weight. Choose a different tip each week for you and your family to try. See if you or they can add to the list. Here are a few:

Walk Whenever Possible

• Walk instead of drive, whenever you can
• Walk your children to school
• Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator
• Take a family walk after dinner
• Replace a Sunday drive with a Sunday walk
• Go for a half-hour walk instead of watching TV
• Get off the bus a stop early, and walk
• Park farther from the store and walk
• Make a Saturday morning walk a family habit
• Walk briskly in the mall
• Take the dog on longer walks
• Go up hills instead of around them

Move More in Your Home

• Garden, or make home repairs
• Do yard work. Get your children to help rake, weed, or plant
• Work around the house. Ask your children to help with active chores
• Wash the car by hand
• Use a snow shovel instead of a snow blower

Live Actively

• Join an exercise group, and enroll your children in community sports teams or lessons
• Do sit-ups in front of the TV. Have a sit-up competition with your kids
• Pace the sidelines at kids’ athletic games
• Choose an activity that fits into your daily life/lives
• Use an exercise video if the weather is bad
• Avoid labor-saving devices, such as a remote control or electric mixers
• Play with your kids at least 30 minutes a day
• Dance to music… with your kids
• Choose activities you enjoy. Ask children what activities they want to do
• Explore new physical activities
• Give yourself a gold star with non-food related rewards, such as a family day at the park, lake, or zoo
• Swim with your kids
• Buy a set of hand weights and play a round of Simon Says with your kids—you do it with the weights, they do it without

(Source: Adapted from smallstep.gov)

Keep track of tips you’ve tried with our tracking sheet (48 KB)