5 Ways to Keep Your Family Healthy (without losing your mind)

I’m not a mother, and I definitely don’t have grandchildren, but I am a control freak—so I know what it’s like to want to be a good influence on the people around you.

It’s taken me longer than it should have to accept that not everyone values health and fitness the same way I do. Maybe you’ve felt this too, especially when it comes to young kids who choose candy over carrots, teenagers who prefer scrolling to sweating, or even spouses who have “let themselves go.”

Before we get into these tips, keep this in mind: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Trying to force someone to change their lifestyle is a losing game. People need autonomy to feel empowered to make their own choices (within reason, depending on age).

The best thing you can do is model what a healthy life actually looks like. Not a perfect one—just a realistic, sustainable one. When what you’re doing is livable, it becomes appealing. Over time, the people around you may start to want it for themselves.

1. Make movement something you do together. Stop calling it “exercise” and find fun ways to move instead. Family walks, backyard games, bike rides, dance parties in the kitchen. When movement is shared instead of assigned, it stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like connection.

2. Lower the stakes at mealtimes. Cook together when you can, let go of perfection when you can’t. One chaotic pizza night doesn’t undo anything. Focus on patterns over time, not single meals. Incorporate whole, nourishing foods, slowly, involve the family in prep so it’s not all on one person, and resist the urge to turn your personal diet into everyone else’s mandate.

3. Protect sleep like it matters—because it does. This isn’t just about kids’ bedtimes. Adults staying up late doom-scrolling affects the whole household’s patience, energy, and food choices the next day. Everyone benefits from some kind of wind-down routine, even if it’s imperfect.

4. Get outside daily, even briefly. A 10-minute walk after dinner counts. Fresh air and sunlight improve mood and energy at every age, and it’s one of the easiest wins there is. Even in the dead of winter, stepping outside for a minute can reset your energy. Make it fun if you want—who can last the longest?

5. Watch how you talk about food and bodies. Your family is listening. Skip the “I was bad today” or “I earned this dessert” language. Focus on how movement feels, not how bodies look. Keep food emotionally neutral—no rewards, no punishments, and no projecting your own hang-ups onto the people you love. A special note for anyone with young girls in the family: the way you talk about food and your body matters more than you think. Eating disorders are real, and early exposure to diet culture plays a role.

   
   

And a bonus tip: be patient. For kids, it can take years of consistent modeling to shape healthy teens and adults. For spouses, it can take just as long for health to become a priority.

Everyone is on their own path, and sometimes the greatest teacher is the consequence of our own choices. As much as we want to protect the people we love from discomfort, forcing our lifestyle onto them rarely works.

If you’re looking for more ways to support your family’s health without burning yourself out, consider joining my Built To Last Membership. Each month, you get custom training programs through my app, weekly and monthly check-ins, messaging support, access to bonus resources and courses that continue to expand, nutrition guidance, live monthly office hours, and a monthly family add-on. This is a flexible resource I created to support real life, whether that means a simple dinner framework for busy weeknights, a starter plan for a motivated spouse.