PHYSICAL EDUCATION & HEALTH REVIEWER

 PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
- is any form of movement that causes your body to use energy. It may be
intentional like engaging in regular exercise or it may occur as part of your routine
such as walking from your home to school, cleaning the car, climbing the stairs,
etc.

BENEFITS OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

One of the most essential things that an individual can do for his health is to engage
in regular physical activities.

 Did you know that physical activity boost mental wellness? Engaging yourself
in a regular physical activity can relieve tension, anxiety, depression and
anger.
 Do you know that you can learn better in school if you engage in physical
activities?
 Do you know that physical activity can make you healthier? Physical activity
improves your physical body.
 Do you know that physical activity can prolong your optimal health? Without
regular physical activity, the body slowly loses its strength, stamina and
ability to function well.

Physical activity allows young people to:

 Develop healthy musculoskeletal tissues (i.e. bones, muscles and joints);

 Develop a healthy cardiovascular system (i.e. heart and lungs);
 Develop neuromuscular awareness (i.e. coordination and movement control);
and
 Maintain a healthy body weight.

Mental health benefits:

 Improved concentration and enhanced memory and learning;

 Reduction and management of stress, anxiety and depression;
 Improved self-esteem and confidence; and
 Improved psychological well-being.

Social benefits:

 Encourages family and community connectedness;

 Improves social skills and networks;
 Reduces isolation and loneliness;
 Creates safer places/communities; and
 Contributes to better performance at schools.

Social benefits for the youth:

Physical activity assists young people in their social development by providing

opportunities for:

 Self-expression;
 Building self-confidence;
 Social interaction; and
 Integration

Other benefits to young people:

In addition to the benefits above, it has been suggested that physically active
young people can:

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  More readily adopt other healthy behaviors (e.g. avoidance of tobacco,
alcohol and drug use);
 Demonstrate higher academic performance at school.

TYPES OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

The four main types of physical activity are aerobic, muscle-

strengthening, bone-strengthening and stretching.

Aerobic activity is the type that benefits your heart and lungs the most.

 AEROBIC ACTIVITIES

Aerobic activity moves your large muscles, such as those in your

arms, legs. Running, swimming, walking, bicycling, dancing and doing jumping
jacks are examples of aerobic activities. Aerobic activity is also called endurance
activity.

Aerobic activity makes your heart beat faster than usual you also breathe
harder during this type of activity. Over time, regular aerobic activity makes your
heart and lungs stronger and able to work better.

LEVELS OF INTENSITY IN AEROBIC ACTIVITY

Light intensity activities are common daily activities that do not require much
effort.

Moderate intensity activities make your heart, lungs, and muscles work harder than
light-intensity activities do. On a scale of 0 to 10, moderate-intensity activity is a 5
to 7 and produces noticeable increases in breathing and heart rate. A person doing
moderate-intensity can talk but not sing.

Vigorous intensity activities make your heart, lungs, and muscles work hard. On
a scale of 0 to 10, vigorous-intensity activity is 8 to 10. A person doing vigorous-
intensity activity cannot say more than a few words without stopping for a breath.

Examples of Aerobic Activities

 Pushing a grocery cart around a store

 Gardening such as digging or hoeing
 Walking, hiking, jogging, running
 Water aerobics or swimming
 Bicycling, skateboarding, rollerblading and jumping rope
 Ballroom dancing and aerobic dancing
 Tennis, soccer and basketball

 MUSCLE-STRENGTHENING

Muscle-strengthening exercises consist of activities where you move your

body, a weight or some other resistance against gravity.

Examples are:

 Use of elastic exercise bands

 Lifting of own body weight
 Use of weight machines
 Lifting weights
 Functional movements such as standing and rising up on your toes

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 BONE-STRENGTHENING

These exercises incorporate activities that make you move against gravity
while staying upright.
Weight-bearing exercises can be:
LOW IMPACT
A Workout is low-impact if at least one of your feet stays in contact with the
ground constantly.
HIGH IMPACT
Both feet run off the ground at the same time.

 STRETCHING
Stretching is a form of exercise that targets muscles by elongating them to
their fullest length.

HEALTH BEHAVIOR AND HEALTH RISK FACTORS

In the past, diseases or sickness caused by bacteria were a constant threat to

people. However, with medical advances, most sickness and diseases that affect a
person’s health couple of years ago can now be prevented. Today, most health
problems are related to lifestyle or the way we live. Lifestyle diseases are partly
attributed to unhealthy behaviors. Some of these unhealthy behaviors are watching
television or surfing the internet for few hours, smoking, eating at fast food
restaurants more often and substance abuse.

 HEALTH BEHAVIOR – is any activity undertaken for the purpose of averting or

detecting disease or for improving health and well-being. It is the behaviour
pattern, actions and practices that speak about health preservation, health
restoration and health improvement.
 RISK FACTORS – are behaviors or situations that increase the possibility of
developing a disease.
 Uncontrollable risk factors. Are factors that you cannot change
such as heredity, age and others.
 Controllable risk factors. Are risk factors that you can do
something about. They can be controlled by your behavior. Your
health behavior will determine the level of physical health that you
will have in the years to come.

Health risk behaviors that will likely cause health problems to young
people like you:

 SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE – is defined as a type of lifestyle where an

individual does not receive regular amounts of physical activity. This results
to a number of overweight teenagers and heart attack even at an early age.
This is characterized by “inactivity”.
 ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE – teenagers, in their search for personal identity,
are often influenced into taking drugs or resorting to alcohol use. This affects
one’s health since alcohol is the major cause of liver disease and drug use as
the culprit for a number of car accident cases, depression, mental disorder
and others.
 ADDICTION TO CIGARETTE/TOBACCO – smoking leads to diseases like
respiratory problems, cancer, heart disease and others.
 UNHEALTHY AND POOR EATING HABITS – Your eating habits can either
help or prevent you from developing many diseases. e.g diabetes, high blood
pressure, cholesterol, stroke
 STRESS – is more often causes physical symptoms including headaches,
upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain and sleeping problems.
Research suggest that stress also can bring on or worsen certain symptoms

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 or diseases. e.g heart disease, headache, upset stomach, temporary
blindness, chest pain, sleeping problem, sexual uninterested.

EATING HABITS AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

What individual eats before, during and after exercise is essential for comfort and
performance throughout the exercise. While eating soon before exercise does not
give the immensity of the fuel required for he activity, it can avoid the disturbing
indications of hunger for the duration of exercise. The main source of energy for
active muscles is carbohydrates which accumulates in the muscles as glycogen
in the days prior to exercise. This is why post-exercise meal is important to
revitalization and being prepared for the subsequent set of exercise.

Food provides the energy and components our bodies need for develop and
movement. For our bodies to be able to use the energy stored in food. We must first
extract it through digestion and store it so we can repeatedly draw on it to generate
the energy molecule that drives all actions of the body.

 FUELLING FOR PERFORMANCE

Our body is like a vehicle, its engine which represents our heart is running when
working out. Meaning when fuelling up the tank with the right foods and radiator
with the right fluids using the right amount at the right foods and the radiator with
the right fluids using the right amount at the right time is very important.

Here is the proper timing of eating before, during and after workout:

Before: Fuel up preferably, fuel up two hours before you exercise by:

 Hydrating with water

 Eating healthy carbohydrates
 Keeping away from Saturated Fats

During: Make a pit stop, your body needs to hydrate with small, frequent sips of
water during workout.

After: Refuel you tank

 Fluids – Drink water. You may blend your water with 100% juice such as
orange juice.
 Carbohydrates – You burn many carbohydrates when you exercise. In 20-60
minutes after your workout, your muscles can store carbohydrates and
protein as energy and help in recovery.
 Protein – Eat food with protein to help repair and grow muscles.

EATING HABITS

Eating is such an enjoyable experience that we often choose to eat foods that
taste very good, but that don’t make us feel very good afterward. Moreover it’s not
only the choices of food that should be given attention. Many young people are
slowly adopting eating habit that are detrimental to their health.

 Emotional Eating – is the tendency of its sufferers to react to stress by

eating, even when not hungry, frequently high-calorie or high-carbohydrate
foods that have least nutritional value. Emotional eaters often crave for
comfort foods such as ice cream, cookies, chocolates, chips, fries, pizza, and
other junk food. According to a study about 40% of people tend to eat more

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 when stressed while about 40% eat less and 20% experience no change for
food they eat when exposed to stress.
 Clueless Eating – this refers to the behavior of people who know nothing
about nutrition. People falling into this category may be significantly
overweight and perhaps experiencing a variety of degenerative diseases.
 Trance Eating – speaks about a form of negative multitasking such as
reading, watching TV, emailing etc. while eating making a person entirely
insensible to what they are doing.
 Sleep-Deprived Eating – For reasons not fully understood, lack of sleep
wreaks havoc on the hormones connection to appetite. It is one of the lesser-
known facts.
 Medication Eating – food is most often the drug of choice of all the
substances that we swallow and consume to make ourselves feel better.
When we are apprehensive, depressed, distressed, annoyed, bothered,
irritated, ashamed or guilty we eat. Dealing with hard emotional conditions is
never an easy task. However, it is not an excuse for constant abuse of food.
 Diet Eating – the only difference of diet eating over the other kinds of eating
is the belief that something good will come out of it. However to achieve such
goal, one must choose a specific diet that he intends to have as a permanent
lifestyle change.
 Social Eating – people use eating as a way of meeting people and
socializing like going out to dinner with friends, snacking while watching a
movie and eating junk food. However social eating can have stern effects in
the manner we see food and nutrition, leading to overeating, obesity,
malnutrition, and other health problems.