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- Dr.Joni Redlich PT,DPT, PCS
Did you know last week was National Healthy Weight Week? To celebrate here are some tips to support healthy weight and body image in young girls and women!
Today’s culture can be a difficult one for girls and women to be in when it comes to weight. There is so much pressure to be a certain weight; while it used to be skinny, now, there is a big push for “healthy weight,” but what does that even mean? The internet is truly a double edged sword as it provides us with access to lots of credible information, it also has a lot of incorrect information which unfortunately spreads like wildfire. With so many people selling coaching, shakes, or other weight loss products it can be difficult to navigate as an adult, let alone as a teen. Here are some tips to help support your tween/teen daughter, niece, cousin, student, etc.
- Support and give an example of healthy eating: make sure you demonstrate healthy eating habits to follow. This means eating all meals, not talking badly about yourself when you eat something that’s not super healthy, discussing food as fuel and how important fuel is for our bodies, etc. Kids and teens learn a lot of behaviors and attitudes from the adults around them, so be sure you are setting a healthy example.
- Encourage regular exercise, but make sure you aren’t equating exercise to value: exercise is a great way to maintain healthy weight and a healthy lifestyle. But it is important to not become hyper focused on it. It can be easy, especially with social media, to think you HAVE to workout and if you don’t you’re a bad person. So encouraging a healthy relationship with working out is crucial.
- Focus on other amazing attributes as well: making sure to compliment other aspects is so important. Some great examples to focus on: kindness, caring, thoughtfulness, helpfulness, etc. These are traits that are completely in their control and not related to body image. Another way is to kind of spin body image compliments, so instead of saying ‘you look so skinny’ you can say ‘you look so healthy’ or ‘you’re glowing when you’re happy’ to focus less on looks and more on attitude.
At the end of the day being healthy is not the same as being skinny or super muscular or anything related to looks. Reminding and encouraging this mindset is key to help young girls have a sense of healthy weight and body image. In today’s world it can be so hard to have a healthy mindset around these topics with social media, and while you can’t control what the young girls in your life are thinking, you can help set a good example for them daily.
It’s the time of year when everyone starts talking about their big New Year’s resolutions. But did you know that less than 25% of people keep their goals past the month of January? Keeping goals and following through is a hard task for anyone, so what can you do to make this process easier? Writing SMART goals is a great first step!
You want your goals to be relevant to you. So making a goal about running might be great for me because I love to run, but you might hate running and so it doesn’t make sense for you. Or on the other hand, maybe you already run consistently. In that case it wouldn’t make sense to make a goal about running consistently because you’re already doing it; instead your goal could be about speed, distance, races, or not related to running at all! If the goal is relevant to you, you aren’t going to do it. You want to be excited to work towards your goals!
Mental health can also be positively affected by yoga practice. Yoga is proven to decrease anxiety and stress, increase mindfulness, and help bring calm and a feeling of being centered. We sometimes forget how stressed our kids can get, even babies! Yoga is a great way to help them figure out ways to calm themselves and to be more mindful. And it goes without saying that parents are often stressed and overwhelmed. The focus on breath and the smooth movements can help bring our nervous systems back into the “rest and digest” zone instead of the “fight or flight” zone that we often live in when stressed out. This in turn helps our physical health (breathing, digestion, sleep, etc). 
But how can you incorporate yoga at home if you don’t want to join a studio? Youtube has tons of good yoga videos for all different levels. There are also plenty of apps that are all about yoga. And honestly you can just play around with different poses and flows at home, it doesn’t have to be perfect! Just remember to go at your own pace and to not push into pain!
Joni did not have to think hard when I asked about her favorite Fall activity: Creature Fest at Duke Farms in Hillsborough! This is one of the few times that the farm is open at night and they have an incredibly interactive nature walk set up where you can see different plants and animals around the farm. 
Wendy, one of our amazing Physical Therapists, says her favorite Fall activity is simply to be outdoors. She loves the changing leaves and the crisp, cool air. Her favorite place to go for a nature walk this time of year is her hometown, Clinton, NJ. She says everyone needs to check out Clinton in the Fall! And she said they also have a really good haunted house for those who are not faint of heart. 
Callie told me that her favorite thing to do this time of year is to go pumpkin picking! She loves to pick out her own perfect pumpkin to decorate her house with. She says she goes to 
Stephanie has also recently joined our team as an intern. She is a senior in high school and looking to go to PT school in the future! Her favorite fall activity is going apple picking at 
My favorite fall activity is going to a local Fall Festival; I love pumpkin picking, doing the corn maze, seeing farm animals, and getting delicious Fall flavored treats! Bonus points if I can bring my adorable doggie with me. Living in Virginia we had several options, but with moving to NJ this year I am planning to check out the 
