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What does it mean to be fit and healthy?
A healthy diet for one person may not be a healthy diet for another, as everyone is different. Different people may need to exercise more or less than others as well as eat different amounts of food. Look at the images below and see if you can tell how much the lifestyles of the following people might affect the amount of food and exercise that will be healthy for their bodies.
So, what is right for you?
It is important to know how to maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle. Fitness can be split into five categories. The Five S's of Fitness are:
Strength
Stamina
Suppleness
Speed
Stability
Measuring fitness
All of the above aspects of fitness include your heart, lungs and muscles. It is, therefore, important to know how to keep each of these healthy.
Healthy heart and lungs
A healthy heart and lungs are essential when it comes to maintaining fitness. A simple way to check your heart and lung health is running on the spot, or steps, for 30 seconds and monitoring the return of pulse and breathing rates to resting level.
Everybody's recovery is different; athletes will return to their resting heart rate in just a few minutes, while people who haven't exercised in a long time might take two or three times longer. The faster the heart rate drops after you stop exercising, the healthier your heart is.
Energy Requirements
Everybody needs a certain amount of energy all the time simply to maintain their normal body functions like beating heart, breathing, maintaining a constant 37oC - this is known as your basic metabolic rate. The amount each of us requires is based on our body mass and our activity (how hard our bodies are working). Each kg of our mass needs 5.47 KJ/hr. So, every day, we need the following amount of energy from our food just to maintain our metabolic rate:
5.47 x body mass x 24hr
So, for a 40 kg boy, he needs a basic: 5.47 x 40 x 24 = 5,251 KJ/day. How will that change with weight and activity? What if he's heavier than 40 kg? What if he's playing tennis?
We will explore some of these areas in this activity.
