How to Keep Your Kid's Heart Healthy

Today's abundance of high-fat, high-sodium foods and sedentary forms of entertainment, such as computer games, poses an ever-present threat to children's cardiovascular health. Without strong guidance in heart-healthy living, kids are at risk for obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. All of these conditions increase the likelihood of heart disease. Learn how to keep your kid's heart healthy by providing a diet that supports cardiovascular health, encouraging active play and teaching your kids healthy ways to manage stress.

Instructions

1

Limit your child's exposure to foods that can damage the circulatory system. Restrict his intake of saturated or trans fats (found in deep-fried foods like doughnuts and French fries), which build up on arterial walls and restrict blood flow. Limit salt or sugar, which can damage arteries, stressing the heart and leading to cardiovascular disease as early as the teen years. Lower your child's intake of processed foods.

2

Offer your child more heart-healthy foods. Serve vegetables, beans and legumes, and whole grains, which contain cholesterol-reducing fiber. Serve foods that contain heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids: cold-water fish such as salmon and herring, walnuts, flax oil and fortified eggs. Use bread spreads and salad dressings fortified with plant sterols and stanols, which are found naturally in all plant foods and block cholesterol absorption.

3

Encourage your child to do cardiovascular exercise. The European Youth Heart Study, published in the July 22, 2006, issue of The Lancet, found that kids need an hour of activity a day for heart health. (The study discovered that the previous guideline of 30 minutes wasn't sufficient.) Encourage your child to do aerobics and gymnastics, or to skip rope, ride a bike or go running with the dog. Take your kids to the park where they can run and climb, visit the local pool for a swim or go on a vigorous hike. Play family games such as kickball, catch, baseball, volleyball and basketball.

4

Keep your kids away from cigarette smoke, which can cause high blood pressure and even coronary heart disease. Children, whose hearts are still developing, are particularly vulnerable. Avoid smoking or letting guests smoke in the house. Educate your kids about the dangers of smoking. If you smoke, let your children know if you're trying to quit and explain why.

5

Teach methods for coping with stress. For children facing family financial difficulties, parents' marital strain or other upsets, stress is a very real problem. If not dealt with, stress can lead to high blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat and even angina. Talk openly about stressful issues to help prevent your kid's imagination from exaggerating the problem and to dispel feelings of helplessness. Teach your kids age-appropriate stress-management techniques. For a young child, that might be reading comics. For a tween or teen, it might be taking up a relaxing hobby.