Many things have changed for families since the turn of the 20th century when two-income families was almost unheard of. Grandma was always home to cook breakfast before school, have milk and cookies ready after school, and cook the family meal with all fresh ingredients. There was no such thing as going to the store and finding a prepared meal that you only had to put into the oven or microwave. Grandma even baked her own bread and made biscuits from scratch. Although you may find a few “Grandmas” left, they are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Even those mothers who have the luxury of being stay at home moms do not cook like their mothers or grandmothers because they are too busy running errands and doing so many other activities that they don’t have the time to devote to cooking. The idea of American family fitness seems to be the farthest thing from the minds of most people in the country today.

Where have all the thoughts of fitness gone in this big country of ours? We are now a country devoted to lifestyle family fitness, which isn’t doing much for us because this style of fitness tends to be devoted to exercise that involves punching the buttons on the remote control or walking to the kitchen for a snack. We have become very sedentary, save for taking the children to their activities. We encourage our children to exercise and eat right, but we do not set an example. Obesity in children is on the rise, and obese children grow into obese adults, so we need to concentrate now on American family fitness while there is still time to change the way we live. High blood pressure and heart disease are on the increase, and it is all because of our lackadaisical approach to American family fitness. We are so obsessed with earning money and having all the best things that we lose track of the things that are important: our health.

How do we change our approach to fitness? After all, if one is going to spend long hours at the office, it isn’t easy to exercise or even eat right – or is it? If you know you are going to be at the office late, take some dinner from home – if you are like most families, there is always something left from the previous meal. Better still, take a nice green salad with some fat free salad dressing and eat it as close to your normal dinner time as possible. If you can’t do anything else, get up and walk around instead of staying at your desk all of the time. One of the exercises truly lacking from American family fitness is walking, so even if you have to work late, you have a lunch break – use the time to take a walk. Even if it’s cold weather, walk in your building or in the parking garage if your company has one. If you walk briskly, you will not notice the cold as much as if you walk at a leisurely pace. When you go shopping, park farther away from your car so that you have to walk a little distance. Although for safety reasons, this may not be a good idea during the Christmas season, it’s a perfect solution at all other times. If we can get ourselves back into the habit of walking short distances instead of driving, we will not only improve our own health, but we will reduce the amount of pollutants that are in the air because we don’t want to walk the two blocks to the store. Make it a New Year’s Resolution for 2007 to get more exercise and eat healthier.