A Preteen’s Healthy Perspective

Hello, my name is Christion Zappley. I am the son of Marlo Zappley and brother of Ariana Zappley. Today I want to talk about something that many families face today, kids staying healthy.

My mom thinks that since I sleep a lot I am very lazy, when really the reason I sleep a lot is because I do many activities that requires me to be mentally and physically prepared. Some people think that it is very unhealthy to sleep a lot, but really getting plenty of sleep is the main way of staying healthy. If you do many activities, you would need to be able to conserve lots of energy; take me for instance, I have lots of things that I have to be ready for like my End of Grade Testing. So I have to be mentally prepared by getting plenty of rest, and eating a healthy breakfast.

Another problem I think kids face is when their parents might think that their kids are not doing anything physical. As an example, My mom never noticed the things that I do at school, but during my school’s Healthy Kids I play Ultimate Frisbee or sometimes just walk around the track. This just shows that many schools are striving for all their students to be healthy even if the kids or parent don’t realize it.

There are many reasons that staying healthy will beneifit you and an example is eating healthy food; espically breakfast. Breakfast is a very important thing for children. Sadly, many kids are skipping breakfast or might not be able to affrod healthy breakfast and luckily many school districts serve a free breakfast every morning to enhance children’s minds and their peformance in school.  Breakfasts are able to help your education but there are also many problems with children’s breakfast if you are not choosing healthy food choices. You could go to almost any supermarket and or store and see a sugary or candy-filled cereal. Instead of buying children that unhealthy cereal you could buy them Kid Cliff Bars or a healthy breakfast drink that has enough calcium to stay healthy.

In conclusion, this is how I think kids manage to stay healthy, while also managing to deal with preteen stress. I hope this could be put into consideration the next time you think of ways to be a healthy part of your family.

– Christion Zappley, 13, is participating in the Fit Family Challenge with his mom Marlo Zappley and sister Ariana.