Positive Fitness Attitude

WHAT IS A POSITIVE FITNESS ATTITUDE?

Robert Reiher Ph.D.  Product Success Psychology

A positive attitude includes a variety of factors (needs, wants, beliefs, values and feelings), all leading to a strong commitment and desire for health and wellness. In this section, we will discuss a variety of important components that are needed to “build” and maintain a powerful and lasting Positive Fitness Attitude for your children and your family.

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IMITATION LEARNING

Kids are pretty much “hard wired” to learn, learn, learn. One of the most powerful ways that children learn is through the process of imitation. This means they repeat the behaviors and incorporate the values that they see and experience from others. Imitation learning presents an important and challenging issue today, especially with respect to the newer and extremely compelling influences that impose their values upon the immature child’s environment. Everything communicates! Whether its people, animals, inanimate objects, television, media, video or games, everything communicates. Children are affected by negative role models as well as positive role models. Some of these models create a very deep and lasting impression. When a child interacts with his family, he/she will imitate what family members are modeling. If families clearly understand this, they can build a powerful and positive foundation for enriching behaviors and younger kids especially can begin to acquire healthy attitudes, habits and behaviors very early in life. The Family Fitness Path is designed with imitation learning in mind. Mom and Dad can easily include kids in their workout if they want, to instill a Positive Fitness Attitude as early as possible. Even if a child is not participating, she is still learning the positive values of a healthy lifestyle. Imitation learning provides an important foundation for the future of fitness, while building a strong bond of trust and love between family members.

RESEARCH SUPPORT: IMITATION LEARNING

A recent article in a science journal titled “Humans Appear Hardwired To Learn By ‘Over-Imitation’” reports experiments where children, when watching adults that were taking unnecessary steps to solve a problem, would actually change their current effective problem solving strategy and take unnecessary, time consuming, “off track” steps instead, changing their mind in order to imitate the mistakes that the adult they were watching was making.

YOUR Positive Fitness Attitude TOOLBOX

1. As a parent or caregiver, ask your self these questions: What models do my children pay attention to? Who are my children imitating? Are the models that attract them in the media healthy ones? Ask yourself, how am I modeling a healthy and Positive Fitness Attitude?
2. Introduce children to the Positive Fitness Attitude slowly. Don’t try to force your child to exercise with you. Instead, be the role model for your child to imitate. Even if you exercise only 5 or 10 minutes you are creating a positive mental attitude toward fitness and exercise by your example. You can use the Family Fitness Path anywhere and anytime. Begin to build some consistency into the process little by little so family members expect to spend time frequently exercising.
   
3. Communicate a loving and positive attitude to your children when they begin to want to participate with you. Again, let them enter the process of fitness slowly without making a big deal of it. Let fitness become fun and rewarding on it’s own, not because you have to do it.
   

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