Healthy Hollywood: Eli Manning’s Healthy Approach To Fatherhood

Father’s Day is Sunday and football superstar Eli Manning is set to celebrate his favorite off-field role as a dad.

The New York Giants’ quarterback chatted with Healthy Hollywood at an Oral B pre-Father’s Day celebration. When asked about the best part of becoming a dad, he was quick to respond, “Coming home and having another life at home.”

“Early in my football career you come home and still football’s on your mind. Now you can kind of go home and escape to the world of dolls and princesses and baths and stories and all sorts of different books and so it’s fun to kind of go into there and be completely away and absorbed in your kids,” he revealed to Healthy Hollywood.

Despite a busy football schedule, Manning still makes room for family time, noting, “We’re home most nights and I get to have dinner with my family and do bath time with my kids and have a lot of fun – lots of bubbles and playing around. I get a lot of time at home to be with my kids.”

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is something that’s important to Manning for both his career and his family. He said his girls keep active in many ways.

“Up here in the winter you can’t really get outside all the time and my wife does a great job of getting them in activities, they do dance classes things like that. So they’re running around and getting a lot of exercise every day,” adds Eli.

He and his wife also make sure to foster healthy eating habits, “My oldest is 3 but she pretty much eats what we eat. So if we’re having fish or we’re having whatever for dinner my wife’s cooking … for the most part we’re trying to get her involved and trying different foods, making sure she’s eating healthy”

While his children may still be young, Manning says he hopes to be an encouraging presence in their life. “Whatever activities they want to do or events or sports or dance or music or whatever they’re passionate about support them one hundred percent.”

At the event Manning was surrounded by portraits of his young family and reminisced about family photos from growing up. “I love going to my mom’s house, my parent’s house to see all the old photos and looking through all the old scrapbooks you’ll see some terrible outfits,” He said. “I was way too tall and too big to be wearing these little sailor outfits so we get on my parents about that a little bit but it’s fun going through those old books and old scrapbooks.”

Thankfully his height serves him much better in a Giants Jersey.

As for his own plans this weekend, Manning is looking forward to a low key day, “I think my wife might have something up her sleeve but I have no plans for the weekend – Just hanging out with my family and being outside, eating lunch, running around with them and getting a whole lot of family time.”

— Terri MacLeod