Health & Parenting News & Features
- FIT Connection for Parents: Recharge
Why does your energy level matter for a healthy lifestyle? How you rest and relax affects your eating, exercising, and emotions, too.
- FIT Connection: Weight Management
How do your eating, exercising, emotions, and energy affect your weight? Learn what part each of these play in a healthy lifestyle.
- Understanding the FIT Platform
Living a fit life is about more than just exercise. Food, mood, exercise, and rest all play a role in fitness and a healthy weight. The FIT Platform explains.
- The FIT Connection for Parents
Eating, exercise, emotions, and energy link together in a healthy, fit lifestyle.
- FIT Connection: Mood’s Role in Health
Why do emotions matter for a healthy lifestyle? How you feel affects your eating, exercising, and energy, too.
- FIT Connection for Parents: Food
Why does eating matter for a healthy lifestyle and weight control? The choices you make about what you eat affect your exercising, emotions, and energy, too.
- Weight Loss Strategies for Overweight Kids
Help your child reach a healthy weight the safe way. Learn the goals and strategies that’s right for every age.
- 16 Signs You're Too Strict With Your Kids
Amy Chua’s recent memoir has fueled debates about whether American parents are too lenient with their kids. WebMD looks at the signs parents are too strict and how to set reasonable boundaries.
- Work With Your Child's Personality
Help kids exercise more and help kids eat better. Use your child’s temperament to make forming healthy habits easier on both of you.
- 12 Healthy Snacks Kids Will Love
Have you run out of ideas for kids’ snacks that are both healthy and delicious? Try these creative combos.
- How I Got My Kid to Eat Brussels Sprouts
One mother explains how she got her children to say "yes" to this much-maligned vegetable.
- Found Your Kid Masturbating?
Here's what to do and what to say -- because how you react matters.
- Jeff Bridges: Hungry for Change
The veteran actor has made feeding millions of malnourished U.S. kids the heart of his life's work.
- 10 Tips to Cut Kids’ Screen Time
Help your family spend less time in front of TVs, computers, smartphones, and tablets.
- Reduce Teen Screen Time Without Stress
These tips can help parents reduce the time teens spend with TVs, computers, and phones and get them physically active instead.
- Healthy Eating Doesn’t Have to Be Hard
Experts offer advice and strategies for how to eat better as an easy family habit, with tips on making healthy food fun for preschoolers, kids, and teens.
- Use Your Mind for Fit Behavior Change
It's not easy for families to make the changes in behavior and habits to build a healthy lifestyle. These tips can help you get and stay motivated.
- Raise Active Kids When You’re Inactive
With fun activities for kids, it's not too late to change your family's approach to fitness.
- 6 Ways to Get Any Kid to Exercise
It’s tough to motivate kids who just don’t like exercise. But parents have more power than they realize.
- My WebMD: A Teen Overcomes Obesity
How one teenager lost weight (and gained confidence) through nutrition, exercise, and persistence.
- Reading, Writing, and Math Skills for Preschoolers
WebMD explains the best methods for teaching preschoolers how to read, write, and apply math skills.
- Brain-Boosting Activities for Your Preschooler
Play, reading, puzzles, games, and socializing are among the activities that may help your preschooler's mind develop, experts tell WebMD.
- Taming Trouble: Discipline and Manners for Your Preschooler
WebMD talks to experts about how to discipline preschoolers and teach them manners.
- How I Got My Son to Eat Zucchini
Preparing this squash in a kid-friendly way (like in our recipes) is the secret to getting kids to like it.
- 6 Ways to Help Your Preschooler's Personality Blossom
As your preschooler grows and learns, his or her personality continues to develop and show itself in new ways. Learn how to encourage your child be himself or herself while still introducing new things.
- Marianne Leone's New Book Details Life With a Disabled Son
Marianne Leon'e new memoir honors a son who died of cerebral palsy in 2005.
- Should You Watch Over Your Tween Online?
In the vast world of cyber-communications, it can be hard to know when -- and when not -- to peek at your adolescent's on-line life.
- 6 Ways Your Teen Is Playing You
WebMD explains why and how teens manipulate their parents and how parents can respond effectively.
- Nutrients Your Kids May Be Missing
Are your kids getting what they need from their food? Check this list to learn what nutrients they might miss out on.
- Get Your Bed Back
Get answers to common concerns about children who co-sleep with their parents at night and how to help them break the habit and sleep in their own beds.
- 5 Tips to Get Your Kids Up for School
Expert advice on how to help your child get up in time for school.
- Helping an Obese Teen Lose Weight
Our reader's daughter has lost 90 pounds -- and wants to lose 25 more. Find out what a mom is supposed to do?
- 8 Mistakes Parents Make With Preschoolers
WebMD discusses 8 common mistakes parents make in raising their 3 to 5 year olds, from playtime to whining and much more.
- Preschoolers and Sleep: Expert Advice
WebMD talks to experts about how to handle preschoolers' naps, bedtime power struggles, and more.
- Modern Moms Ask for Help
How and why mothers of young children can ask for help.
- When Parenting Styles Differ
It's a common plight -- one parent is authoritarian, the other more relaxed. Unless you get your styles in sync, your kids and marriage may suffer. Here's how to start.
- Is Dirt Good for Kids?
Should you let your kids get dirty and be exposed to germs? WebMD discusses this idea and the benefits and risks associated with it.
- The Secret to Maintaining the Mother-Daughter Bond
As it turns out, keeping the lines of communication open may depend on one primary factor: good old-fashioned listening.
- LeBron James Pays Homage to the Mothers in His Life
The NBA super star credits his mother and his girlfriend for making him both the athlete and the family man he is today.
- 9 Mistakes to Avoid With Your Toddler
Temper tantrums? Potty training? Toddlers can be tricky, but learning to avoid these mistakes can make parenting them much easier!
- Teaching Your Kids to Share
Sharing doesn't come easily for most kids. But with patience and empathy, parents can help kids develop the habit.
- 5 Mistakes Parents Make With Teens and Tweens
As your child grows into adolescence, you need to adapt your parenting skills for a teenager. Here are the top mistakes parents make with their teens and tweens, and how to avoid them.
- Chyler Leigh Juggles Acting, Marriage, and Mothering
How Grey's Anatomy's Chyler Leigh juggles acting, marriage, and mothering -- including a new baby.
- Michelle Obama Takes on Childhood Obesity
WebMD talks iwth Michelle Obama about curbing childhood obesity and the new "Let's Move" partnership.
- Is My Child a Troublemaker?
Parents can correct bad behavior in kids who are "troublemakers." Learn how to handle lying, fighting, and more.
- Is Weight Training Safe for Kids?
WebMD article on strength training guidelines for kids.
- Make Kids’ Fitness Fun and Safe
Fitness can be a family affair. Here’s how you and your family can stay fit, safely and effectively.
- Dos and Don'ts for Kids' Allowances
Should allowance be tied to chores? To good behavior? Should kids be forced to save? Follow this guide to finally getting your allowance system right.
- How to Help Your Child With Homework
Experts talk about how to help your child with homework -- without doing the work yourself.
- 9 Ways to Wean a Child off Thumb Sucking
Got a preschooler who won't stop thumb sucking or finger sucking? Find out what to do about it.