Today, more than ever childhood obesity is becoming a real problem with children from every facet of life. Even though schools are making strides to improve the lunch and snack fare available to them during the hours that our children are under their care. It seems like more and more children, from elementary through middle-school are experiencing medical issues such as stage 2 diabetes.

Nearly one in six of all U.S. children and adolescents are obese, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control. And with some struggling schools forgoing traditional physical education classes, health experts view this issue as a growing concern. The regular physical activity encouraged in PE classes not only helps build and maintain healthy bones and muscle, it has also been shown to improve students' academic performance.

"Research shows that school is one of the first places where kids establish health habits," says Jen Ohlson, co-founder of Interactive Health Technologies LLC (IHT), a company pioneering customized P.E. curricula through the use of heart rate monitoring. "As a solution, many health advocates are turning to physical education to positively impact adolescents' overall health. With the right tools and resources available in school that can extend to home, teachers and parents alike can reach students on an individual level, helping them achieve their own fitness goals."

This of course needs to be actively pursued by both parents and the school systems. Today’s children need to be shown that being more physical can help them both in the classroom and out of it as well. Especially if we get them motivated to join in available school sporting venues. We need to get them off the couch and outside participating in physical activities that get them breathing a little hard while using muscles that just aren’t being used when their sitting on a couch watching a movie, playing a video game or simply texting their friends who are also just sitting around their homes.

Physical activity, along with a sensible diet, rich in good proteins, the right carbs and even the right amount of fats will go a long way into allowing your child’s body to function the way it was designed to. You just can’t get fit by playing an action hero in a video game without you taking part in any REAL ACTION!

Set measurable short-term goals.
Motivation is all about goal setting. Teaching your kids to evaluate their habits, showing them just how much out of the day they’re just sitting around, being non-active as sort of a wakeup call, and showing them how they can make little changes that will improve their wellbeing is important and if explained correctly they just may surprise you and start listening to you about how they need to change up their lifestyle.

Setting goals can be a fun project for teachers and parents along with the students so you can all work collaboratively on making sure the goals are measurable, timely and realistically achievable. In order to track everyone’s progress. Yes, we said everyone because its not only the kids that are migrating to a larger pant size, it’s the adults as well. So we can all get on the same bandwagon and start getting in better shape by following through with the goals we mentioned above are so important to make.

Tracking Your Goals:
Use technology to help them understand.
"Research shows kids and adults in the U.S. are spending more than 7.5 hours a day using technology. Alarming as it may sound, we see leveraging that technology as an opportunity to help kids and the adults get and stay active," Ohlson says. Using activity trackers, that also have the functionality of a wrist-based heart rate monitoring device for PE, can make using wearable technology to motivate students and adults to exercise to their own individual potential. Harnessing the power of heart rate zone training, you can reach your goals by running around, jumping, dancing, really any activity that raises the heart rate.

One such tracker, maybe better suited for the adults is the Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smart Activity Tracker. This SmartWatch with GPS, Tracks steps, distance, your sleep and has more than 15 preloaded GPS and indoor sports apps, including yoga, running, swimming and more

You can monitor your fitness level with Vo2 Max and fitness made estimates, plus keep an Eye on how you handle stress with the Stress Indicator feature by First-Beat Technology. This little feature alone can help you stay focused on what you need to be able to do in order to reach your fitness goals.

Now depending on the age of your kids, for those aged from 5-10 years old you can look into the Garmin Vivofit Jr 2 : Kid's Interactive Activity Tracker  Parents manage their kid’s activity tracker by using the free app. Add multiple children, and see their steps, sleep, daily activities, and chore data when it syncs to your mobile device.

You can, Assign tasks and chores, set schedule alerts, find out how many reward coins each child has, access adventures, and even invite the whole family to compete in daily step challenges together, all from your mobile device.  Keeping track of just how much your kids are actually doing and then offer a reward for good performance.  Making a game out of being active, will jump-start their "Competitiveness-Mode" which will keep them looking to outperform their siblings, and or, friends.

So, now that you have a couple of tools available to you to inspire both your children and yourselves, what are you waiting for. Go on, get yourself motivated and get stepping, as a whole family!

You’re into being healthy, and you know that part of being healthy is making your body move and get toned with a variety of exercises. From weights to cardio, each person has their own particular regimen of working out so that they get the best results from the combinations of exercises that they do each week. And most of us use some kind of Activity Monitor in order to track our daily progress so we can get a feel for just how well we are doing up against the target goals we build out for ourselves. These target goals all have a perceived time stamp, developed by you, maybe with the help of a trainer or even your family physician. But when you reach that time-stamp, does the data from your Activity-Monitor, Smartwatch agree with the end results you see? It could be you’re measuring yourself up, using the wrong data-gathering device which is going to skew your numbers, and maybe even your motivation.

What I’m getting at is there are a lot of different makes and models of smart-watches, or Fitness Trackers out there on the market right now. And from the looks of things, there are only going to be more and more each year, based in part to the growing emphasis from the medical community on pushing Americans into getting healthier and losing the moniker that we have been labeled with over the past decade or more as being morbidly obese!

After all, take running shoes for example. You wouldn’t put on a pair of “Brooks Brothers” dress shoes to go for a 5-mile run right? I mean, even though these shoes cost around $1,900.00 doesn’t mean they are the perfect shoes to wear when you’re taking part in a run, right? No, you’re going to wear a suitable pair of running shoes, ones that give you support, are lightweight and will provide the proper spring to your step which is necessary when you’re going to take part in a long-distance running event.

Well the same goes for any kind of Fitness tracker as well. The number of these smart-watches continues to grow, making the task of choosing the best one for you all the more difficult. With watches aimed at everyone from beginner runners and swimmers to performance triathletes and ultra-marathon veterans, it's all too easy to overspend for features you don't really need or will probably never use.

Choosing the right smart-watch is all about zeroing in on your own personal fitness goals and matching a Fitness Tracker to those needs.

Like I mentioned earlier, getting the right stats on your performance is probably one of the most important things you can do in keeping yourself both motivated and on track to achieve your fitness goals. Using a Fitness Tracker, one that provides you with the right data can keep you on track and on point to conquer those goals. The one that fits the bill in my book is the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Smart Activity Tracker  Whatever your form of exercise that you happen to be doing on any particular day of the week, the Vivoactive 3 can keep up with your pace and record that data accurately. With up to 15 preloaded indoor sports activities loaded, like swimming, running and even yoga, this watch will monitor your stats and keep you updated on your progress. And if you want to take it outside the gym, or your own personal exercise room and hit the open trails, this watch can be that experienced trainer, looking over your shoulder. With its GPS capabilities, which Garmin played a big part in developing this functionality, first for our military and now for fitness tracking enthusiasts. You will always know where you are and how far you are away from your endpoint.

And with the help of the new "Elevate™ wrist-based heart rate technology²", Vívoactive 3 lets you monitor key aspects of your fitness and stress to show how your body responds under various circumstances. For example, it’s able to estimate your VO2 max and fitness age; 2 indicators of physical fitness that can often improve over time with regular exercise. It also tracks your heart rate variability (HRV), which is used to calculate and track your stress level. Vívoactive 3 can make you aware when physical or emotional sources cause your stress level to rise so you can find a way to relieve the pressure.

So, as I said above, this watch besides being the only Fitness Tracker you’re going to need, regardless what sort of exercise regimen you’re doing now, or in the future, The Garmin Vivoactive 3, can track all your vital stats and spit them out to Garmin Connect. For not only you to access but to enable your friends or fitness partners to know what they’re up against in trying to keep up with you!

So, again, why worry if you’re tracking your workouts correctly???? Because you care about just how far you need to go to “Beat Yesterday” !