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Health & Fitness

Words Hurt

Dance is a great fitness alternative to traditional sports for kids who can't play.

Somebody called my son “chubby cheeks” at school today.  Kids can be so mean. What was I supposed to say to him? I said the usual, just ignore them and consider the source. But, that doesn’t make a seven year old feel
any better about himself.

I know how he feels though. I have been picked at about my weight all my life. It hurts. I got so fed up when I was younger, I got into my head food was bad and it was going to make me sick and I got scared to eat. Basically starved myself for a while. And, although I lost an extreme amount of weight, it was a toxic dangerous way to do it.

How do we help our children survive this crisis and not make the bad choices we made? I think it is great there are nutrition experts out there who tell them to make their plate fruits and veggies. That’s not realistic for some kids. Then what? So, we take baby steps. Change to low fat milk, change juice to water, grill our meat instead of frying.

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This is where dance comes into the picture for me. For non sports playing kids, what a great way for kids to get exercise in a non competitive, non threatening
environment. They can just be kids hanging out having a good time expressing themselves. Where no one is judging them and they get distracted by the rhythms of the music and they forget their hearts are beating fast and burning calories.  How rewarding for a child to be able to exercise and have fun all at the same time. They will begin to feel good about who they are and their self confidence will soar. Maybe with new found confidence they can go back to the boys who called them names and stand up for themselves.

Join in the fight against childhood obesity, find a dance class for your child today.

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