PART THREE: GENERAL HEALTH Flashcards
A supplement is a substance added to something to fill a deficiency or to
make something more functional or complete.
SUPPLEMENT:
A dietary (or nutritional) supplement is a product taken to provide the body with nutrients that are not obtained in a large enough quantity in the diet.
DIETARY SUPPLEMENT:
A vitamin is a substance that living organisms need for their cells to function,
grow, and develop correctly. The essential vitamins required by the human body must be
obtained from the diet, as the body cannot synthesize them in adequate amounts.
VITAMIN:
A mineral is a substance that contains no carbon (whereas vitamins do) and
that forms naturally in the earth. Your body needs minerals for many different physiological
functions, including building bones, making hormones, and regulating your heartbeat.
MINERAL:
The human body is 75 percent water. Water is lost by sweating,
urination, and breathing, and you need to replace it every day.
Dehydration is the state in which the body has replaced too little water for it to properly
function. This has various negative side effects like headaches, tiredness, weakness, and, in
extreme cases, even death.
DEHYDRATION:
A nerve is a bundle of tissues in the body that carries electrical messages between
the brain, spinal cord, organs, and muscles. These messages give sensations and cause muscles
and organs to operate. Nerves are the “communication lines” of the body.
NERVE:
To process food means to use chemicals or machines to change or preserve
it. Many methods of processing food destroy some or most of the vitamins, minerals, and other
nutrients that it naturally contains, and often involves the addition of chemicals that can be
harmful to the body.
Heavily processed foods often have fewer nutrients but more calories than their less
processed counterparts.
PROCESSED:
Organic food is free of artificial food additives and often has been raised and made
with fewer artificial methods, materials, and conditions, such as chemical ripening, food irradiation,
and genetically modified ingredients. Pesticides are allowed as long as they aren’t synthetic.
To be certified organic, food products must be grown and manufactured in a manner that
adheres to standards set by the governments of the countries they are sold in.
ORGANIC:
All-natural foods are often assumed to be foods that are minimally
processed or that do not contain any food additives such as hormones, antibiotics, sweeteners,
food colors, or flavorings.
That said, while the “all-natural” label implies minimal processing and additives, the lack of
standards and regulation means that it is essentially meaningless.
ALL-NATURAL:
Cholesterol is a soft, waxy substance found in most body tissues,
including the blood and nerves.
Cholesterol is necessary for survival and is used in building the cells and vital hormones in
the body, as well as for other important functions. Too much cholesterol in the blood, however,
increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, and other disease.1
Your body makes some of the cholesterol it needs, and the rest comes from animal products
you consume, such as meat, fish, eggs, butter, cheese, and whole milk. Cholesterol is not found
in foods made from plants.
CHOLESTEROL:
The BMI is a scale used for estimating how much people
should weigh depending on their height.
The BMI is meant to give a snapshot of the health of large groups of people or whole
populations, but when it’s used to evaluate an individual, it’s often inaccurate because of different
body types, like having a thin frame, having a lot of muscle tissue, or being very tall.
BODY MASS INDEX (BMI):
Your body fat percentage is a measurement of the fat you
have in your body expressed as a percentage of your total body weight. For example, if your body
fat percentage is 10 percent, that means that 10 percent of your weight is body fat.
This is a more precise measurement of fat than the BMI as it directly measures the person’s
fat no matter what that person’s body type is or how much weight in muscle that person has,
factors that are not taken into account with the BMI.
The amount of fat your body needs to accomplish basic body functions for living is about
3 to 5 percent body fat in men and 8 to 12 percent in women.
BODY FAT PERCENTAGE:
Body composition is used to describe the percentages of fat,
bone, water, and muscle in human bodies.
As you’ll learn in this book, weight and BMI aren’t nearly as important in gauging our
progress as body composition. Our goal isn’t to reach a certain number on the scale or a particular
BMI reading—it’s to achieve a certain type of look, and that boils down to a certain amount of
muscle with a low body fat percentage or a certain type of body composition.
BODY COMPOSITION:
