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A growing concern among parents of adolescents and younger children is obesity and a passive behavior when it comes to everyday activities. If your kids are glued to their play stations and Xbox and are turning into couch potatoes, its time for you take a stand, but this time maybe, in their favor.
There’s a bright chance your child has demanded for a fitness tracker, and you’ve said no. But have you gone through its pros and cons? Here is how a fitness tracker enables you to bring about a change in your kid’s physical activity.
1. Healthy Competition
Many fitness trackers like a Fitbit device come with apps that you can connect with your phone, and stay in touch with friends while keeping track of their daily goals. By setting up challenges, children can compete among themselves which is another motivating factor to keep them off the couches and video games.
By connecting through their apps, they can invite friends and family to join them in challenges and even track how far they are from achieving their goals.
2. Motivate them to stay Physically Active
The key driving power behind weight loss is motivation. It could be intrinsic or extrinsic. Since our children have developed a more sedentary lifestyle, intrinsic motivation is a rare find among this age group. Fitness trackers are a brilliant source for extrinsic motivation.
But how do fitness trackers keep your kids active? Firstly, these trackers let you set customized goals based on your child’s specific activity level. It informs them about how far they are from achieving their goal. Once they reach their goal or set limit, it rewards them with incentives such as trophies, unlocking a level or increasing points, similar to a video game. The difference, however, is that fitness trackers contribute in adopting an overall healthier lifestyle without doing exercise seem like an uphill task.
3. Creates a Sense of Achievement
Encouragement is an essential component of the weight loss journey and developing a healthy lifestyle. Unless your child feels positive about it, you can not guarantee that fitness trackers will prove to be beneficial.
By congratulating them on climbing a certain number of floors, completing their set goal of a specific number of steps, or eating within defined calories, children get a sense of accomplishment, which is otherwise not measurable.
Appreciation on small steps taken goes a long way in changing their sedentary routine.
4. Measures Quality of Sleep
What most of us don’t know is that in order to lose weight or maintain a healthy lifestyle, sleep plays an equally important role as exercising. Fitness trackers not only tell you how much sleep is needed for them, but also keeps track of their sleep as well as their movements in sleep.
It keeps a check on their sleep quality which is otherwise not possible. This way you can determine if your child is sleeping properly through the night and gaining ample REM sleep. This explains a lot if your child feels tired even after a night’s sleep. No better way to keep a check on your child’s health.
5. Keeps a Calorie Count
As more and more improvements in fitness trackers keep hitting the market, your choice becomes all the more harder. However, if you’re primarily looking for a fitness tracker which assists your kid in losing weight, you would want to get one that has a calorie meter.
Calorie meter is responsible for food logging. Simple scan the bar code of the food items you’ll be feeding your kids, and you have an accurate calorie count in front of you. What better way to keep track of the calorie intake.
6. Develops healthy Habits
Fitness trackers are just not a gadget for your kids to stand out among their friends, but actually go a long way in developing healthy habits, and an overall healthier lifestyle. By eating right, exercising for the required time and sleeping right, can you only expect them to perform well academically and stay active through the day.
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