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What is a lifestyle?

A person's lifestyle is the way that they choose to live. This guide will focus on:

  • what they eat
  • how much they exercise and sleep
  • other choices, like medication or drug-use

The effects that lifestyle choices have on the human body are well known.

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Watch: A healthy diet

A healthy diet means eating the correct amount of the different types of foods. An example of this is eating five portions of fruit and vegetables and fewer sugary sweets and fatty foods.

Find out more about healthy living and the effect of diet and exercise.

The benefits of having a healthy diet include:

  • not becoming overweight
  • having more energy
  • faster recovery from injuries
  • being more able to fight off infections
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Do you know how much of each type of food we need?

Click on the pictures to find out.

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Exercise

The recommends that young people do around an hour of exercise per day. The benefits of this include:

  • not becoming overweight
  • having more energy
  • keeping your heart, lungs and muscles healthy
  • greater flexibility and strength (meaning fewer injuries)
  • being more able to fight off infections

Many of these benefits are the same as with having a healthy diet.

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Sleep

It is important to get plenty of sleep to give your body time to recover and recharge for the next day. Most people need around 8 hours of sleep per night to wake up feeling refreshed and recharged. A lack of sleep may lead you to feel a little grumpy the next day, lose concentration and may have a negative impact on your mental wellbeing and overall health in the long run.

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Drugs and medicines

Image caption,
Doctors can provide you with drugs to help you overcome illnesses.

Drugs are any substances that alter the way that the body works. Many of these are medicines which help people get better if they are sick. However, there are other drugs that are not medicines which don't help people get better. These include cigarettes and alcohol. Taking too many of these drugs can make you sick.

Image caption,
Doctors can provide you with drugs to help you overcome illnesses.
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Watch: The effect of different drugs

Learn about drugs and medicines.

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Activity 1: Identify what humans need

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Activity 2: Healthy lifestyle quiz

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Activity 3: Design a poster

Why is a healthy lifestyle important to you?

Think of a few reasons and create a poster or presentation that explains them.

You should find facts in books or on the internet to make a really good poster.

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Bitesize Primary games. game

Play fun and educational primary games in science, maths, English, history, geography, art, computing and modern languages.

Bitesize Primary games
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