5 Apps & Accessories That Make Physical Fitness Fun for the Family
May is National Physical Fitness/Sports Month. What better time to establish healthy habits than a season when the weather is generally mild and perfect for getting the whole family active?
Many families understand the need for exercise and activity. While some have children who are athletes, others will fall into one of two categories: Either their kids have busy schedules full of extracurricular activity that gives the brain a good workout, or the children prefer texting to tumbling around in the yard.
It can be difficult to make time for nutritious meals and physical activity that don’t seem like some sort of punishment. But these apps and tech accessories can make meal-planning easy and fun, while encouraging everyone to get moving.
Awesome Eats
Players learn to separate and sort lots of foods onto the right grocery store conveyor belt—fruit or vegetable, organic or non-organic, for example.
After each level is complete, a health or game tip appears on the screen to teach a fun fact or share a healthy eating tip.
64 levels increase in difficulty for children who love a challenge.
Also has a recycling component that challenges kids to sort non-food items after their virtual characters have lunch.
Available for free in the App Store and Google Play.
FitBit Flex
Giving each family member a FitBit Flex is an easy way to challenge the entire household: Set up a contest to see who can reach a certain number of steps first. Fun Fact: 2,000 steps = 1 mile.
Flex tracks steps taken, distance traveled, and calories burned, motivating you to reach your daily goal and be more active over time.
The Fitbit Flex can also be worn at night to measure how well you or a family member is sleeping, making it an excellent tool for teaching kids how important quality sleep is to their health.
The app can also log what your child eats and drinks and track nutritional info.
($99.95)
Kurbo
This app designed specifically for kids and teens motivates users to set goals and develop healthy habits.
Food and Exercise Tracker easily tracks your food and exercise; track progress over time, too.
Get personalized in-app messages, texts, and notifications for feedback, encouragement and recommendations.
Fun games help kids learn about nutrition, earn badges and have fun.
Budgeting tool helps your child adjust food choices around special events.
Weekly challenges keep kids on their toes and engaged.
The app also allows you and/or your kids to set reminders and goals, and pick a customized coaching avatar.
Available in the App Store and Google Play. Monthly cost varies by coaching plan.
Pact
Pact users pledge a set number of days they plan to workout that week, along with an amount of money they must put up.
Users must pay for each day they miss, but they get paid every time they complete a workout.
According to the app description, the money is paid to you from what’s lost by others who fail to meet goals.
This app isn’t exactly for children, but it is excellent inspiration for a household challenge: Have your child put some of his/her money in a jar or box. Each family member pledges to pay when goals are met but withdraw money when a child or parent slacks off.
Available for free in the App Store and Google Play.
Zepp accessories
Incorporate kids’ love of video games into an outdoors family fitness plan with ZEPP Baseball, Tennis or Golf accessories, found at local Verizon stores and other outlets.
ZEPP uses small sensors attached to the user’s wrist or sports equipment (baseball bat, tennis racket or golf club) to analyze the swing and show where the user may need improvement.
An accompanying app makes it easy to compare results to those of family and friends, or to replay and review the swing from any angle, all from a smartphone.
($149.99)