There is nothing more important than good health, and good health begins with good habits. If you are looking to make this year a healthier one for your children, consider adding the following to your to-do list. These small steps will go a long way:

Make sure you take your kids to the doctor for yearly check-ups, not just when they are sick

A yearly visit gives your doctor a chance to chart the changes in your child year-to-year and red flag issues early on while they are still preventable or easy to treat. “As a pediatrician, the check-up is a golden opportunity to look at a problem before it is a problem,” says Rebecca Unger, a pediatrician with Children’s Memorial and The Northwestern Children’s Practice. Unger says that yearly checkups also help parents keep up. “Health maintenance recommendations are constantly changing and evolving and new immunizations and recommendations are popping up all of the time – even for kids in high school. Most parents wouldn’t know this if they weren’t going to the yearly check-up.”

Offer better foods to your family

Experts have been saying it for years – the health benefits of the family dinner are huge on all fronts. Not only does the family dinner offer a time for bonding and reconnecting with your children after a long day away – which is worth the effort in itself, but it is probably the only guarantee your children will eat right. Fast food and convenience foods are usually high in fat and low in nutrition.

Sitting down to a large family dinner, because of multiple schedules to juggle, is probably out of the cards for most families, says Unger. “Try three times a week. And keep them simple. Meals don’t have to be complicated to be nutritious.” Unger suggests that this year parents increase whole grains and fiber when reevaluating their family diet. “We also have found that we need more Vitamin D than we thought. Kids over two should drink three glasses of low-fat, skim or 1% milk a day.” Go to www.mypyramid.gov for a great source on serving amounts and sizes. You can enter age, weight and gender and the site will calculate individual nutritional needs for everyone in your family.

Get your kids active

According to the American Heart Association, inactive children, when compared with active children, weigh more, have higher blood pressure and lower levels of heart-protective high-density lipoproteins (HDL cholesterol). Inactivity can lead to obesity and future health problems.

Unger says that kids should be getting one hour of physical activity on most days of the week. “This is cumulative,” says Unger. “If they walk home … run around in gym class …walk the dog … it all adds up.” Remind kids that being active can be fun. Encourage kids to take their fun outside rather than in front of the TV or a video game. And be sure to join them. There is nothing that works better in setting up good habits than being a good role model.

Read to your children

“Reading is the foundation on which learning every other subject rests,” says Christine Rehak, the reading recovery teacher at Meadow View Elementary School in Plainfield, Illinois. “Do it as often as you can. Reading should be interactive.” Rehak says that when you read to your child, stop periodically to get your child’s take on the story. “Ask questions,” says Rehak. “What did Cinderella do to solve her problem, why did she do that, what would have happened if Cinderella had done this instead.” Rehak says that by doing this you will be helping your child to develop critical thinking skills.

And don’t stop just because the kids learn how to read themselves. Reading to an older child helps him or her develop good listening skills. It will also help them to start to recognize things like pacing and flow as well as how different writers have different voices. These are all things that will help them become better writers. And of course, reading together promotes parent-child bonding – another great benefit.

Teach your kids good hygiene

Fewer Americans are regularly washing their hands, even though it has been said to be one of the best ways to prevent colds and flu. A recent phone study showed that 35 percent of those participating do not wash their hands before eating lunch (up from 31 percent in 2006) and 85 percent say they don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. Even more disturbing, those questioned were adults.

Even if your child is washing his hands, chances are he or she isn’t doing a good enough job. Many kids do a quick rinse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kids should work soap up to a lather and then continue rubbing hands for about 20 seconds. They suggest teaching your child to sing “Happy Birthday” twice as a way of timing themselves.