Look at Diet and Exercise

It's all over the media at the moment, isn't it?

"This type of diet is best for you."

"Exercise for health."

"Cut down on red meat and processed food."

It's all so confusing! How can we cut through all the hype and really find out - do diet and exercise really matter?

Well, first off, what do we mean by 'diet'? In the media it often means, "I'm on a diet" - in other words, I'm watching what I eat, cutting certain foods out. In science, diet has a different meaning: it simply means "What we eat". So, if you're an Inuit, living in northern Canada, your diet has a lot of seal meat and fish in it and not so much fruit and veg. If you're Italian, you may well eat lots more olives, vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts and so on in your diet, and less meat.

Your diet provides both your energy and the building blocks of your body - fairly important, then!

This activity gives us the chance to check over our understanding of how diet and exercise affect the health of our body, and hopefully gives us the opportunity to expand that understanding too - let's check it out.