Lifestyle & Health Unit 31: Assignment 1

Chloe Marshall

Physical ActivityYou should be exercising for 40 minutes - 1 hour each day to stay healthy!!

We do exercise to stay healthy, it benefits us in other ways too for example:

- Keeping our weight controlled

- REDUCES fat & RELEASES energy (exercise makes us release endorphins which raise our happiness and self esteem… exercise indirectly prevents depression!!)

Doing physical activity benefits you psychologically as well as physically for example it increases the quality of your life: increases longevity and happiness, prevents many diseases for example:

- Cardiovascular

- Cancer

- Depression

- Arthritis

!

!

!

An example of how physical activity affects our life style is the story of a man who is now obese and depressed…

When the man was young he was quite lazy and preferred spending his time playing video games and eating snacks. He did not enjoy doing physical activity, he thought it was unnecessary because he was not putting on tons of weight at the time. Now all the snacks and lack of exercise has caught up with him and he's fat, depressed, lonely and a lot more susceptible to diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease.

DietIt is important to have a balanced diet, having a balanced diet improves our lives in different ways for example: improving your mood, energy and is good for our immune system which stops us from getting diseases. One way of making sure your diet is even is to follow the food pyramid, which I’m sure you’ve learned about. The food pyramid is made up of 6 sections or groups, the largest section at the bottom is the one we should eat most and the smallest one at the top is what we should only eat on special occasions.

The bottom section is Carbohydrates which gives our body energy. You have to be careful though because white flour, bread and rice add more sugar to your body than it needs. Whole wheat or alternatives like Quinoa which release the sugar slower.

The second layer of the pyramid is made up of Vegetables and Fruits, they are good for us because they give us the right vitamins and minerals to keep the body systems for example the digestive and the respiratory system working properly.

The third layer consists of Dairy and Protein, dairy is good for our bones and gives us vitamins our body needs but it is high in saturated fat (these give us high cholesterol which makes it easier for us to get disease. We find them in butter and cake) so using the alternative for example skimmed milk instead of full fat milk is better. Protein helps our nails, hair and other parts of our bodies to repair and be stronger.

Some foods that give us protein are fish, which provide unsaturated fats (these lower our cholesterol and give us fatty acids. We find them in nuts and avocados too!), meat, eggs and beans.

Lastly, the least needed food group, Fats, we do not need such a high intake of fats because we get enough sugar naturally from fruits and the other food groups. A lot of fatty food we eat contain Trans fats → they lead to high cholesterol which can cause health conditions such as heart disease, heart attacks and strokes.

It is easier to get/be fit with a balanced diet. Exercising requires these nutritional groups to get the most benefit and outcome:

A high amount of carbohydrates to sustain their energy levels.

Some healthy fat lipids, which aren’t necessary but they are able to get them from natural sources like nuts and avocados

Protein is beneficial for building muscle but the amount they should eat depends on how much exercise they do, if they do not do much physical activity then they should not eat that much because it will not be used and it'll become fat.

Someone who became stressed ate unhealthy fast food to cope and to comfort herself. This soon became a routine, which led to her consuming more and more food. Eating so much unhealthy food caused her to become obese and developing a heart problem, affecting her body image, self esteem and whole life because she is at risk of dying younger.

!!!

AlcoholAlcohol is not a safe substance due to the effects it has on us whilst under the influence by making us uncoordinated and disorientated. In the long term it will affect our hearts, give us high blood pressure and more chance of liver, mouth, other cancers and body sicknesses.

When we are under the influence of alcohol we act, feel, speak and walk because it disrupts the brains pathways making it hard for us to control ourselves.

Alcohol does have benefits to our bodies in very small quantities, especially later in life/ midlife it is good for preventing heart disease and stroke

Recommended amounts of alcohol: (1 unit = 10ml)

Children: None (it affects them mentally, making the chance of depression and bad school grades/ performance)

Adults :

Male - 3-4 Units per day

Female - 2-3 Units per day

Health Risks of Long Term Drinking:

Anaemia - The lack of red blood cell circulating

Cardiovascular Disease - Alcohol making the blood clot which prevents normal function.

Gout - It is when the feet do not get any circulation and

Dementia - It damages the sections of your brain faster than an old persons, it results in memory loss

Nerve damage - It affects the nerve cells, creates problems for you for example erectile dysfunction because drinking damages your

nervous system due to prolonged exposure to the toxins.

A man who was successful lost control of his drinking habit after many years of using it as a stress relief mechanism to escape from the stress of work and responsibilities lost his family and job. This was due to drinking too much, he became an alcoholic which led to bad decisions and unfortunate events.

He could not function during the day, he would be aggressive, jittery and uncoordinated because he was either drunk or hungover. His job was at stake because the long term drinking caused his body malfunction. Now he is in a rehabilitation programme restarting his life, if he didn't get help it is likely he would have suffered from liver failure, high blood pressure, various cancers and psychological affects.

!!!

Smoking Smoking harms your body in many ways and is dangerous even when you are breathing in the second hand smoke from people around you, this would be most relevant if you have parents or relatives who smoke that you are around a lot.

Some of the affects that smoking has on our health in the long term, including:

Increasing the risk of lung, mouth and throat cancer.

Reduces calcium in your bones which boosts the chance of you breaking bones (especially when you get old, your bones are already fragile… smoking will only intensify the affect on the quality of your bones)

Risk of having a stroke. When the blood can’t get to your brain properly, you end up having a stroke.

Smoking affects your lungs greatly as you inhale all the toxins and other damaging properties of cigarettes through there, it results in Chronic Bronchitis which is the infection of the main airways of the lungs and Phenomena, the inflammation of the lungs.

Intaking Carbon Monoxide, which harms cells and prevents them from circulating properly.

Smoking affecting fitness:

It affects fitness greatly because smoking damages or at least affects all our organs. Doing exercise is harder for

a smoker because they have less oxygen circulating around their body due to the cells being damaged;

therefore will be more short breathed than non smokers, which means they aren’t able to get the same benefits and satisfaction as people who are not addicted to smoking. There are other set backs for smokers when it comes to

fitness as they are more prone to injury a

!!!

!There was a teenager who became addicted to smoking at a young age to reduce stress and to fit in.

Now, he has grown up and smoking has ruined his life and created more stress due to his high risk of cancer and other fatal diseases.

StressThere are close to NO benefits of stress as it impacts us emotionally, physically and mentally a lot in bad ways over a long period of time or if we do not give ourselves a break.

Stress affects us further than emotionally, it also affects us physically for example giving us high blood pressure which leads to higher risk of heart disease (raised blood pressure increases chance of getting heart disease)

!Health Risks of Stress:

There are 3 different kinds of stress:

Positive Stress: This sort of stress is beneficial as it takes place mainly when we meet new people or are faced with a challenge, it is not unsafe because it

does not last for long and does not mentally affect us.

Tolerable Stress: This sort of stress can affect us mentally but is recoverable and occurs through

more traumatic experiences for example: The death or separation or people close to you (parents, other

relatives, close friends) or an intense injury.

Toxic Stress: This sort of stress is more critical and is dangerous to us as it can affect our whole

bodies. It can be caused by abuse and neglect and other extremely traumatic situations (family violence/ addiction). This is usually creates

constant problems throughout the sufferers life leading to difficulties functioning, learning and

cooperating daily.

!!

!!!There was a student that suffered from stress because of the pressure to make high quality work and meet deadlines. Because of this he was always working late nights and up at crazy hours to get a high grade to get into the university of his dreams.

After _(however long it takes for stress to affect you)_, he could not keep his high grades because he was mentally and physically crashing. Eventually, he was so worn out from all the stress that he lost all motivation and aspiration, he had also become weak and unfit because of all the time spent worrying about his future.

Bibliographyhttp://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/health/

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389?pg=1

http://www.livestrong.com/article/17770-nutrition-affect-fitness/

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Recommended-Safe-Limits-of-Alcohol.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/faqs.htm

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/12-health-risks-of-chronic-heavy-drinking?page=2

http://www.nhs.uk/change4life/Pages/alcohol-lower-risk-guidelines-units.aspx

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/healthy_living/smoking/hic_smoking_and_physical_activity.aspx

http://www.albertafamilywellness.org/brain-development-addiction/positive-tolerable-toxic-stress

!IMAGES

http://livelighter.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/stressed-student.jpg

https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.digication.com/M8e165e6aef9adfb5a12c308e1dfb9fa7.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/USDA_Food_Pyramid.gif

http://stop13stepinaa.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/cb_alcoholics_anonymous_ll_120314_wg.jpg

http://matthewnelder33.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/sad-fat-man.jpg

http://karmajello.com/postcont/2014/02/exercise.jpg

http://804enterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/what_junk_food_640_22.jpg

http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/hypertension-easing-stress

http://vagusfitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/stress3.jpg