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Did Your Parents Promote Exercise?

Growing Up, Did Your Parents Promote Exercise?

March 9, 2010

When I was a young girl, my dad decided to buy the entire family bikes. We'd do family rides every weekend — that is until riding bikes with your parents just wasn't the cool thing to do. When I was older, I was encouraged to take gymnastics, run track, and play a team sport in junior high and high school. My family didn't instill a competitive edge, although my mom can be quite a boisterous fan, but they did promote getting up and getting moving. What about you?

15 Comments

3 years 7 weeks

wishes

Allytta 3 years 8 weeks

they did promote it for me, but didn't do it themselves.. they'd send me to tennis and football school (socker for you) and pay for my aerobics/pools/step classes/hiphop dancing, but i grew up to be a lazyass when it comes to exercise. I have a good friend whose parents would always be active and she's still active and is in love with exercise. I wish my family made it clear that being lazy is not an option

Ranaulz 3 years 9 weeks

I wish my parents would have motivated or pushed me to exercise or eat healthy when i was in the teens ....

jessfish25 3 years 9 weeks

My parents were fit, mom was always outside gardening, and dad owned his own business which required a lot of manual labor from himself... but my sister & I were total couch potatoes. We lived outside of the city limits so playing sports wasn't an option. My mom hated it, but we were lazy. Now that I have to watch my weight, I hate that I didn't exercise while growing up.

chibarosa 3 years 9 weeks

No, I wish they had made it fun. Instead, having to go outside was more like a form of punishment. Now, I run and spend a lot of time outdoors. I wish I'd had that same outlook when I was a kid.

inlove23 3 years 10 weeks

My parents are not (were not) athletes, but they always encouraged sports and being outside. When I was younger my parents never really bought me and my sister electronics so we were forced to go outside to find entertainment anyway. We grew up climbing trees, riding bikes, swimming and walking all day until it was time to come in. Ahh, the good old days =)

courtney3 3 years 10 weeks

my parents used to run marathons, and they put me into various sports at an early age to help me find something i loved. well, after twelve years of soccer, eight of swimming, one of baseball, one of basketball, a month of five year old ballet, and one tae kwon do lesson, i ran my first marathon last week in new orleans. like mother & father, like daughter :]

Spectra 3 years 10 weeks

My dad was all about being active...he used to run and play tennis and he always got us into biking and jumping rope and stuff like that. But my mom hates exercise and always has, so she never encouraged us to exercise much.

doogirl 3 years 10 weeks

I grew up on an agricultural farm, and with all the farm work we were expected to do, chopping weeds, painting trees, planting trees, tromping cotton, we were exercised out! Plus, we lived way out in the country, so to get to our friends' houses we had to ride bikes, which we did all the time. And our Grandma lived right across the street, she had a pool, we'd be in that pool from sun up to sun down! We were all very active kids, not in sports, but in other ways!

ella1978 3 years 10 weeks

My dad was very athletic, and my mom was a baseketball player and cheerleader. I played Basketball and Volleyball and swam. I also had a pony, and took care of horses in my backyard.. yet my mother used to always tell me I needed to get up and be more active... shoot, at the end of the day I was TIRED! I still am, that's why I work out first thing :)

lilegwene 3 years 10 weeks

My parents encouraged us all to get outside and in the summer we'd take evening walks or bike rides as a family. Also, my brothers played baseball and my sisters and I would horseback ride. I was the only one in my family into running though, and my parents did not attend a single cross-country meet. Stuff like that happens when you have 7 kids, but it always kind of bothered me.

starbucks 3 years 10 weeks

My mom was never really into sports but we everyone in my family has always owned a bike and we would use it for transportation a lot.

mamasitamalita 3 years 10 weeks

both my parents were athletes in college and required my siblings and I do have one "extra curricular" sport (they also required we all play an instrument, and for me I was in a competitive choir). I did sports for awhile with little league and whatnot but I realized I was fairly uncoordinated and stuck with Irish step dance for many many years :)

ticamorena 3 years 10 weeks

haha, fit, my mum's the nutsiest sports fan, especially for tennis (she used to play) - in our household you fall into either Federer (my parents) or Nadal (me & my sisters) camp, and everything else follows, but we're only competitive about board and table games, not really sport

ticamorena 3 years 10 weeks

Both my parents have completed half marathons or marathons, my dad's into running, my mum's into swimming (and now running), my sisters' into gymnastics and swimming, me - hockey, running and swimming, we all cycle, go hiking, play badminton- anything really, plus they have always been happy to bear the expenses of sport kits, equipment, crazy morning drives to meets, matches & competitions etc Oddly, for such an active bunch, I became the first member of my family to join a gym a couple years ago, but quit after a year haha

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