Health & Genes – Story Prompts That Encourage Families to Be Healthy

What advice would you offer someone with health concerns?

• What health setbacks have you experienced and what did you learn?
• Have you made any changes to your lifestyle or habits to improve your health?
• Are there are treatments or therapies that you would recommend?
• Some people are reluctant to recognise symptoms and go to the doctor. Do you have any advice or have you regretted this yourself in the past?

How has your fitness or health progressed over the years?

• How healthy and fit were you in your youth?
• When did you reach your physical peak and what activities were you doing then?
• How has getting older affected your health and fitness?

In your family, are there any inheritable illnesses of note?

Are there health symptoms that future generations should look out for?

• What symptoms have you experienced that others may one day?
• If you don’t wish to talk about inheritable illnesses, highlighting health symptoms to get checked out is a good alternative.

What health-related setbacks have you faced?

• What have been your greatest health challenges?
• Did you learn anything from the experience?
• Were there symptoms prior to the onset?
• How did you recover?
• Has it had any lasting impact on you physically or on your health habits?
• What recommendations would you make for someone with the same health issue?

Who takes after who in your family?

• Perhaps a physical trait, like their eyes, ears or height.
• Perhaps it’s in their passions and interests.
• Perhaps it’s their outlook on life.

Do you have photos of different family members, clearly showing their similarities?

• Do you have old photos of ancestors at the age of current family members?
• Do you see any similarities?
• Showing the youth in your family that they look similar to their ancestors can be quite an impactful experience.

How would you benchmark your fitness today, for future comparison?

• What does a workout look like for you today?
• How often do you work out?
• By tracking what you can do today, you can see how your performance changes over time.
• By sharing your workouts with family, they can benchmark themselves against you. Imagine having a rough idea of your ancestor’s health at your age – you can offer this to future family.

What health lessons have you learned?

• What tips and tricks have you learned?
• Have you learned by making health-related mistakes?
• If you could go back in time and give yourself health advice, what would it be?

What advice do you have for being mentally healthy?

• How do you try to keep a positive and healthy mindset?
• Have you had any mental health setbacks in the past?
• What caused them and how did you overcome them?

Is there a health-related challenge you would like to set your family?

• Is there a health-related challenge that you could set for your family? Perhaps everyone, or just a select few.
• Can your family commit to a weekly walk or trip to the swimming pool?
• Will your family try meat-free Mondays or try out some other change in their weekly diet?
• Perhaps the famous 100 pushup challenge?
• Or the 30-day plank challenge?
• Can you inspire everyone to walk 1,000 miles in a year?