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You are what you eat!
Are you a plate of chips?
A baked potato?
A couch potato?
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A big fry-up with sausages, eggs, beans and
chips?
Perhaps you are 90% sugar?
40% added fat?
Or five different colourings? |
We are all growing! We all eat, drink and breathe and move
about ..... so this is about doing it healthily - and making ourselves
feel happy!
The things that keep us, animals and plants healthy are
almost the same...
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Fresh air |
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Clean water |
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Nutritious food |
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Plenty of exercise (particularly if
you are an onion) |
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Warmth |
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and Light |
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We all enjoy love and hugs and the occasional good laugh
too... even onions!
Plenty of clean fresh air is good for your body - not least because
fresh air is full of oxygen. A lack of oxygen makes us sleepy - which
is why at the end of a long lesson you might start to nod off. If you
have been sitting still for a long time and breathing shallowly, then
your brain is getting less oxygen. |
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If you live in a town or city then the air you breath is
probably polluted. Some scientists think that it is pollution that is
causing more people (particularly children) to have asthma. Some
plants and animals are particularly sensitive to pollution - but
others are very hardy and some plants actually help the situation by
acting as a filter.
The main cause of pollution is burning fossil fuels -
like coal, gas, petrol and diesel - so if you would like to have
fresher air where you live - then here are some
things you can do about it..
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Get your family and school to buy its
electricity from a renewable energy electricity supplier |
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Walk to school rather than travelling in
the car - you will be reducing pollution, getting some fresh air and
some exercise |
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If you have a garden, do some gardening - not only
will you benefit from the fresh air, but the plants will help make
the air healthier, you'll get some exercise and you'll get to eat
fresher food |
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Talk your local garage into selling Bio diesel! (made
from vegetable oil - it's carbon neutral!). Buy food that is
produced as near to where you live as possible |
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Avoid smoky rooms - cigarette smoke can kill you by
hardening arteries or causing cancers |
 
In this country we are really lucky. We have loads of water
at the moment and, compared to some other countries, it is very clean. We
are so wealthy in this country that we even flush good drinking water down
the loo! - or spray it on the garden! It takes energy to clean water - and
at the moment burning fossil fuels creates most of the energy.
We (humans) need to drink lots of water, because we are made up of 70%
water and our brains and bodies stop working properly if we become
dehydrated. So drink lots of water to help keep your body in good working
order! (6-8 glasses a day is a good amount for children)
Remember to refill your water bottle - don't keep buying new ones, it's
expensive - but most of all it's bad for the environment - all that energy
wasted in making and transporting a bottle that is only used once and then
buried in a hole in the ground with the rest of the rubbish.
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(By the way, most fizzy drinks are not good for you,
they are very sugary and salty. They often make you thirstier and are
generally not much use apart from the taste.) If your school doesn't
have facilities for you to get clean drinking water, then ask for
them! |
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There's loads of stuff said about eating food that is
good for you - you know - like eating all your greens and eating
jacket potatoes instead of chips. Eating a balanced diet is very
important - a wide range of foods is good, and so is trying to include
5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day in your diet - cooked or raw,
baked banana's, raw carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes or a fresh, crisp
apple! |
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Something that is also important is to try and arrange
for your food to be unprocessed as much as possible. This is because
processed food is normally packed full of salts and sugars and extra
fat (particularly saturated fats) - and colourings, preservatives,
stabilisers and flavourings. Next time you buy something, have a look
at the label - has it got lots of E numbers, or words you cant read,
let alone understand on it? |
Would you like to learn? You don't have to wait until
someone teaches you. (Although kitchens can be dangerous places, so
get permission from an adult before you start.)
Cooking can be SO simple and people love it when they find someone who
can cook. There are some really good books that explain the basic
cooking skills, for adults - and other books written specifically for
children.
Cooking can be great fun and very sociable - it will come in useful
over and over again and is a skill for the rest of your life. All you
need is some time in the kitchen and some fresh ingredients. |
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course it's not just us animals that need to be fed a good mix of
nutrients... plants do too! In fact, the better plants are fed when they
are growing, the better they are at feeding us in turn. Plants draw
nutrients up from the soil and store them in their leaves (e.g. spinach),
or roots (e.g. carrots), or fruit (e.g. apples). When we eat them -
particularly if we eat them raw, we get loads of the goodness transferred
to us!
Things to
think about when planning your dinner, breakfast, lunch or tea..
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Try to eat fresh foods instead of processed. |
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Try to eat food that is produced close to home (it'll
be fresher). |
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Eat organic food whenever you can (no poisons and
pesticides). |
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Try to stick to foods where you recognise all the
ingredients on the label. |
But the best idea is...
 That
way it'll be really fresh, won't have travelled miles to get to you, has
not been processed, you'll have enjoyed some exercise whilst growing it,
it wont use packaging, it'll be really cheap and you'll have been able to
ensure that the plants were well fed - so that they can feed you well!
Just remember to try to...
 Organic
gardening looks after the whole growing system. It carefully ensures a
good mix of nutrients in the soil and in our food and avoids poisons and
herbicides. Organic gardening is fantastic for us because it takes
everybody and everything in the food chain into account.
It involves digging in fantastic mucky things like manure
(that's usually horse, cow or chicken poo to you and me), leafmold, wood
chip and other things to nourish and build up the soil.
 The
soil becomes strong and healthy from all this attention and has a lot of
micro organisms and bacteria and mini beasts - of which the earthworm may
well be the largest.
Plants that get to grow in healthy organic soil tend to be
big and healthy, nourishing and very, very tasty!
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And - because no herbicides are used, the water stays clean
and unpolluted.
And
- because no pesticides are used (not even slug pellets,) none of the
pests are poisoned, which means that they can be breakfast, lunch and tea
for all sorts of species, like hedgehogs, birds, frogs and voles.
Indeed, organic gardening uses companion gardening and
mini-beasts to protect plants. For example, greenfly will generally stay
away from plants that have garlic or onion planted near to them and
ladybirds love to eat greenfly too. Encouraging frogs or birds into your
garden can help to keep down slugs and spiders will rid your garden of all
sorts of plant-eating mini-beasts. |
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If we don't exercise then our bodies slowly stop working
which might give us health problems. If our muscles are strong then
they protect our joints from being injured. And if our heart is strong
then we have more stamina to do things like enjoy sports, run about
laughing and ride bicycles. |
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exercise speeds the blood moving around our systems and increases the
amount of oxygen to our cells, which means that we grow better and
stronger. Lots of exercise can feel really nice too, our body's way of
rewarding us for doing the things that it wants us to do.
Sometimes you have to go through the pain barrier first...!
If you dislike physical or energetic games, then perhaps you
would enjoy martial arts? How about dancing or climbing? Walking, swimming
or cycling, Tai Chi or yoga? Of course, exercise will increase the flow of
oxygen to your brain, which helps it work better too!
 
We need to stay warm. Plants can't grow without warmth, and neither
can we. We have a lot of advantages over plants in that we can put lots of
warm clothes on or move about to keep warm (that's what shivering does -
although jogging about is even more productive), have porridge for
breakfast (food generates energy in our bodies which makes heat), or go
inside where it's warmer. Remember to shut the doors if the heating is on!
Good insulation and double glazed windows help a lot to keep the heat in -
and the heating bills down. It is often possible to get grants from your
local council to help your house become more energy efficient - and of
course it's good for the environment too.
We all need light - preferably daylight. Plants don't grow without it and
we all need sunlight to keep us healthy. It has been suggested recently
that if we don't get enough natural daylight in the winter it can upset
our hormonal balance making us depressed. Did you know that sunlight
stimulates our bodies to produce vitamin D, which is good for your bones,
because it make sure your blood has the right level of calcium and
phosphorus? Without this vitamin children can get rickets and adults can
get osteomalacia - bendy breaking bones.
Often just walking or cycling to school and back can give us
the daylight we need - although an hour's run about outside is even
better!
Sometimes it is difficult to eat and drink well,
particularly in schools.
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Do you have easy access to clean water in
the corridors (not from the taps in the toilet, |
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Are you allowed to take water into the
classroom? |
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Is there anywhere you can buy fruit?
(fresh or dried) or fresh vegetables (ever chewed on a carrot or eaten
fresh peas from the pod?) |
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Do you have a healthy eating option in the
school canteen? |
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Does the school tuck shop sell healthy
snacks? |
 If not then
ask! 
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Request it!
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