KEY
FACTS
1.
FOOD
GROUPS
To be
healthy we must develope a healthy diet. Not all foods are the same. Some are
very good for you, so you can have more of the. But others are not that
healthy, so you must control the amout you intake.
Depending
of their main components we can group them into
CARBOHYDRATES:
Cereals, bread, pasta, starchy
vegetables (Starchy
vegetables?) and sugars. They help us to be active and they give us energy.
Look at this picture:
PROTEINS: Lentils, some types of beans, meat, eggs, chicken, fish, nuts and dairy products.
They
are important for building all parts of the body, including muscles and bones.
We need them to grow, and to replace or repair worn out parts. Look at this
picture:
FATS:
These are found in diary foods, some meats, margarine, and oil. They are
important to store (reserve or put away for future use) energy. If you
take too many, if you abuse, they can make you overweight and unhealthy. Look
at this picture:
FIBRE
AND VITAMINS: We get these from cereals, fruit and vegetables. We should eat
plenty of these everyday. Lack of fibre will
cause problems in the digestive system (constipation)
and heart. Vitamins are
substances that are important for many different processes of the body:
Vitamin
D for your bones.
Vitamin
A for good vision.
Vitamin
C is good when you cut yourself...Etc
2.
Vitamin
C and SCURVY
Vitamin
C is found in some fruits and vegetables, especially citrus fruits
such as lemons, limes and oranges.
During
the XVIth and XVIIth centuries (let´s say from 1500 to 1800) lots of sailors
developed an illness called scurvy. It consisted of:
·Swollen
body causing painful movements
·Split
and bleeding gums .
·Swollen
tongue and throat.
·Death
caused by the difficulty in eating and drinking.
The
reason was that sea journeys were very long. Sailors would spend weeks and
weeks on the ship without any contact with land. Electricity had not yet been
discovered, so storing food in a fridge for a long time (like we do today) was
not possible. A sailors diet consisted mostly of dry biscuits, salty meat and
water, but very little amounts of fruit.
Check this video (click
"show more" for the lyrics)
*
3.
Exercise
To keep
a healthy diet it is very important for our muscles to work hard. Ask
yourself:
-Have I
made my muscles work hard in the past 3 days?
Why is
exercise so important?
When we
exercise energetically we feel hotter and breathe faster. Our body is in action
and many processes are taking place. Our muscles burn sugars, and ask for more.
More oxygen is needed for burning of calories. Blood carries the oxygen and
sugars to all the parts of the body, especially muscles. More energy is needed,
more oxygen is needed so the heart beats faster.
All
these processes re-new our body, making us stronger, helping us think better,
and making us feel better.
*
On the
other side, what happens if you don´t exercise: Here are two words that you can
think about:
Overweight,
(click the play button and listen while you read)
4.
The
Heart
The
heart is a muscle that pumps blood around the body.
The
heart and the lungs are protected by the ribs.
The
muscle in the walls or your heart contracts regularly.
As your
heart contracts it pumps blood around your body and to your lungs.
The
heart in the the middle of the chest, but as the left side of the heart is
bigger than the right, it feels as though your heart in on the left.
The
heart has 4 chambers (rooms): a right and left atrium, and a right
and left ventricle.
Your
heart is about the size of a clenched fist.
The
right-hand side of your heart is separated from the left-hand side.
The
right-hand side receives blood that carbon dioxide (CO2) from your body and
pumps it to your lungs so it can be exhaled (the toxic gas is expelled).
The
left-hand side of your heart receives blood from the lungs, blood with clean
oxygen (O2). From there it is sent to all the corners of your body.
Blood
leaves the heart in "thick walled pipes" called arteries.
Blood
returns to the heart through "thin walled pipes" called veins.
We call
both arteries and veins blood vessels.
Each
beat of our heart can be felt in some parts of our body (wrist, neck). This is
called pulse.
An
average pulse in resting position is around 70 beats per minute.
In
resting position it takes our body 6 seconds to send the blood from our heart
to the brain and back!!!
The
heart:
4.
What
affects health negatively?
We have
seen that we need to have a healthy diet and do exercise in order to have a
healthy body. It is now necessary to talk about the other factors that affect
our health in a negative way.
·Dirty
air from cars, factories (pollution) that we breathe.
Have
you heard about "La
Boina de Madrid"? Maybe you can discuss this article with your
parents. What is important for you to know is that every time with use petrol
(in our cars, in trains, aeroplanes, in factories to make new products) we
create gases. These gases go up into the atmosphere and they spread. This is
what we call POLLUTION. This gases are toxic.
·Virus
and bacteria (you will study this in Year 6) that enter through breath and
food.
Every
winter we fall ill. coughs, sneezes, tummy aches, diarrhoea.... We have
probably heard our parents or doctors say "It´s a virus," or
"It´s an infection caused by a bacteria." Mummy or daddy go to
the chemist and buy some Dalsy, Apiretal, Amoxicilina.
I am
sure this situation is familiar. Well, these illnesses are caused by tiny
microscopical creatures that are floating all around us. We call them micro-organisms or
germs. You will study them in Y6.
·Drugs
and medicines: tobacco smoke, alcohol, caffeine, theanine...
SMOKING
Smoking
consists of burning tobacco leafs and breathing the smoke produced. When this
happens, some of the substances go into your blood, some stay in your lungs.
The
three main substances produced are carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar.
·Carbon
monoxide: takes the place of the oxygen, so heart and lungs are forced to work
harder.
·Nicotine:
it´s a drug that makes the heart
beat faster. It harms the heart, the blood vessels (arteries and veins) and the
nervous system. Nicotine also makes teeth and fingers yellow. It is a very addictive drug,
so once the body gets used to it, it needs to have it all the time (this means
that the smoker finds it very difficult to quit smoking.)
·Tar is
black and sticky. It sticks to the walls of the lungs making it harder for
oxygen to enter the blood. It also is responsible for making smokers cough.
ALCOHOL
Alcohol
is found in many drinks. When fruit or cereals are fermented the sugar
transforms into alcohol. Alcohol can be very attractive for teenagers because
it creates feelings of silly happiness, and makes them feel important. On the
long run, it hurts your liver, parts of the brain, and can destroy your family
life.
COFFEE,
TEA, COLA DRINKS, ENERGY DRINKS
·
Caffeine or theanine are substances found in common everyday drinks. They make
the heart beat faster, and make people feel less sleepy.
OTHER
DRUGS
·We find
medicines in pharmacies and similar shops. They have been made to help us cure
from different illnesses. They must be used under medical supervision, and you
should always read the instructions carefully before using them. Of course,
children should never take them without an adult.
·Maybe
you have heard about illegal drugs being sold in the streets. These
are not used to cure. If you want to know more about this, ask your parents. We
are not studying this in Y5.
·Sunbathing.
In
summer we all love to go to the beach. Some of us like to sunbathe, that is to
lay sleepy under the sun. The reason is that the sun light helps our body
produce vitamin D which we need for healthy bones and teeth. Sunbathing has
also positive effects on our feelings, making us feel happy.
On the
other side, too much sun can burn our skin, make our skin grow old, or even
cause a very serious disease called skin cancer.
5.
Extras
Steve
and the Wasp... .
