Ensure Your Family is All in Against Cancer.
Supporting each other is important in making and sustaining healthy lifestyle changes for the whole family. You can keep each other motivated and make healthy eating and physical activity fun by spending time working on it together.
Take Control
The whole family is effected by illness when it strikes, and that’s why the whole family should participate in wellness. Talking to your kids about eating healthy and getting enough exercise along with setting a good example in those areas can impact their health the rest of their lives.
Regular physical activity and healthy diet can help your family stay at a healthy weight. Being over weight and obese are associated with an increased risk of several types of cancer. Too much weight increases your risk of diabetes and heart disease, too!
Try some fun activities to get the whole family involved in healthy living:
- Choose a game! – Its important to enjoy what you are doing so you wont get bored or think of physical activity as work.
- My Plate Grocery Store Treasure Hunt – Take this sheet to the supermarket and have your child look for food in each food group.
- Fun Activities to get active and relieve stress – Helpful suggestions for ways to prevent or limit stress for the whole family.
For more information, order a Healthy Families Guidebook.
Get Support
Finding out you have cancer can be overwhelming, not just for the person who is diagnosed, but for their friends and family too. Support from your family is important in making and sustaining healthy lifestyle changes throughout your cancer journey.
How family and friends can help each other:
- Respect the commitment to change.
- Ask how they can help you.
- Keep a positive attitude.
- Spend time exercising together
- Learn to overlook lapses
- Do what they can to keep home and family relaxed
- Don’t take grumpiness personally during this change.
- Don’t threaten, pressure or criticize.
- Don’t hide food or nag about exercise.
- Don’t offer high-calorie foods as temptation.
For more information, order a Guide for Patients with a Recent Cancer Diagnosis.
Ready to Make a Change?
Every day is a new chance to make better choices for a healthier you.