📘 Part 3: Keeping healthy

This episode's vocabulary

Commonplace (adjective) – happening often or seen frequently. → Going to the gym is commonplace these days.

Health-conscious (adjective) – aware of and concerned about health. → People today are more health-conscious than before.

Context (noun) – the situation or circumstances around something. → It depends on the context.

Afford (verb) – to have enough money or resources to do something. → You might be able to afford what you need.

Relative lack of (phrase) – having less of something compared to before. → There is a relative lack of demand on people’s time.

Conducive to (phrase) – making a certain outcome likely or possible. → Some lifestyles aren’t conducive to good health.

Performance-enhancing drugs (noun) – substances that improve athletic ability. → Some people take performance-enhancing drugs.

Endocrine disruption (noun) – interference with the body’s hormone systems. → They may suffer from endocrine disruption.

Osteoporosis (noun) – a disease that weakens bones. → Performance-enhancing drugs can lead to osteoporosis.

Embody a good example (phrase) – to show good behavior through your own actions. → Parents should embody a good example.

Multicultural society (noun) – a community with people from different cultural backgrounds. → Health concepts vary in a multicultural society.

Sustainable (adjective) – able to be maintained over time. → We need a sustainable way to stay healthy.

Awareness-raising campaign (noun) – an effort to inform people about an issue. → The government runs awareness-raising campaigns.

Flyer (noun) – a small printed sheet with information or advertising. → Charities send out flyers about healthy living.

Misleading (adjective) – giving the wrong idea or impression. → The food pyramid poster is extremely misleading.

Balanced diet (noun) – a way of eating that includes all necessary nutrients. → A balanced diet is key to staying healthy.

Regular check-up (noun) – a routine medical examination. → You should have a regular check-up with your doctor.

Preventive care (noun) – actions taken to avoid illness or injury. → Exercise is part of preventive care.

Hydration (noun) – the process of keeping the body supplied with water. → Hydration is essential for good health.

Sleep hygiene (noun) – habits that help you sleep well. → Good sleep hygiene improves overall health.

Questions and Answers

How do today's people keep healthy?

Well, lots of ways. It seems like everyone and their mother goes to the gym or goes running and does yoga and stuff like that. I'm not sure it was so commonplace before because people tended to work more hours and be less health-conscious. Maybe the closest thing they might have come to was running around an office while working. Almost nobody does that these days.

Is it difficult to stay healthy?

Well, surely that depends on the context. If you're a working single mother of three kids, then it's hard to see how you can find the time to look after yourself, unless you move around a lot at work and have a good salary. Then you might be able to afford what you need to do that. But for most people, given the wealth of information and opportunities out there and the relative lack of demand on their time, it should be easier than in the past.

Why can't many people keep healthy?

Well, other than what I said about having lives that aren't conducive to it? Maybe they just lack the awareness or have been misled. For example, some people think that taking various performance-enhancing drugs will make them healthy. And indeed, it does. In the short term, they look fantastic. But in the long run, they suffer from things like, I don't know, endocrine disruption and osteoporosis, and anxiety. So that's not great if you want to live a good life for a long time.

What can parents do to help improve their children's health awareness?

Well, it's easy to say they should just tell them to be healthy, and that's enough. But in the first place, lots of parents themselves aren't very good at looking after themselves. They might smoke or drink and then turn to their kids and say: Don't be like me, which is a pretty confusing message to send when you think about it. They really have to embody a good example, and their kids can see and follow it. It's always easier to show than to tell, at least for this kind of thing.

Maria: Do schools have the responsibility to provide health education?

Rory: Well, the easy answer is yes, since their job is to educate and to provide a good future. But this sort of breaks down when we consider that concepts of what is healthy vary from place to place. And in a multicultural society, that can be really hard to balance, especially when it comes to religious matters, like what foods are considered good and bad. It's probably better that they help students identify how they might go or they might best go about being healthy in a way that fits their lives and biology. That seems more sustainable and practical.

Maria: Where can people find information about keeping healthy?

Rory: Well, all over the place. You can hardly take a breath. There's someone offering you some sort of health advice, whether it's government awareness-raising campaigns or various charities sending out flyers or running ad campaigns to help people make the right choices. I mean, even the food industry contributed to that horrendous food pyramid poster you see plastered around schools, which is extremely misleading, but it's still information about keeping healthy. So it's everywhere.

Discussion

Maria: So we say that people keep healthy.

Rory: They maintain their health so as not to die.

Maria: And people usually go to the gym, people go running, people go jogging, people do yoga and stuff like that. And other activities.

Rory: Everyone and their mother. That's an expression. It means everybody or it seems like everyone.

Maria: So everyone and their mother. So kind of everybody. So we don't mean that, like, literally everybody's mothers do something… strange, why mother?

Rory: I don't see any reason why it could be their father. It's just a way of emphasising that everyone's doing.

Rory: And you can also say that it's so commonplace for people to go to the gym. Like it's common, it's popular. People tend to do sports every day. People tend to do yoga. People eat healthily. Okay, careful. So people are healthy, they eat healthily. A good strategy is to give examples. So you say like: Okay, it depends. If you are ta-ta-ta, then this. But if a person is ta, then this. And here Rory gives two examples. If you are a working single mother with three kids, with three children, it's hard to keep healthy because ta-ta-ta. Like you have less time to look after yourself or to look after your health, for example. Or some people might not be able to afford to keep healthy. So we should be able to afford health. But keeping healthy is easier today than in the past.

Rory: I think so, anyway.

Maria: Yeah, lots of information, opportunities are there. We have some free options.

Rory: But then your next question begs to differ. Why can't many people keep healthy? Because they do the wrong thing, probably.

Maria: Yeah, they eat fast food, they smoke, they drink.

Rory: There are microplastics in the water.

Maria: Perhaps they just lack the awareness. They don't know how to be healthy. They are not aware that something they do is unhealthy. Or they have been misled. Remember from the previous episode, we told you about misleading information, the information that is wrong. So people might have been misled. So maybe they have been misled, present perfect. So they have been given wrong information about health. And seriously, for example, we are told that rice is healthy.

Rory: Unless you're allergic to rice.

Maria: Yeah, but actually, what rice is healthy, you know, Rory? What is the healthiest rice? Tell me, Rory.

Rory: If I'm right, it's whole-grain rice. So rice that's not been bleached white.

Maria: Yes, so white rice is actually not healthy, dear listener. And actually, I researched this topic thoroughly. And now I don't eat white rice. I eat red whole-grain rice because this is the healthiest rice. White rice is not... Well, it's much better than a burger or a pizza. Oh, yum, yum, yum. I love pizza. But so the only rice I eat now is red whole grain rice. And that's how many people have been misled. Because maybe they have the idea that white rice is super healthy. Oh, now you know.

Rory: Are there any circumstances when white rice could be healthy?

Maria: Well, yeah. For example, if you have white rice and a lot of vegetables and it does depend on your body, but usually people say that red rice is the healthiest option. Another example is different performance-enhancing drugs. And many people think that taking performance-enhancing drugs makes them healthy. The drugs that enhance your performance. Enhance is a very good word.

Rory: Performance-enhancing drugs is also a collocation. It's just a very fancy way of saying steroids.

Maria: And if we enhance something, we improve the quality.

Rory: Maybe.

Maria: So we kind of enhance our performance in life. We are more productive, faster. We kind of do stuff. But well, yeah, so pretty much like people take chemical elements, chemicals, which ultimately ruin their bodies.

Rory: In the short term or in the immediate future, it works. So this is like for a couple of years. But in the long term or in the long run, there's like years, decades after that, when all of your organs start failing because you have barfed them out or because you've disrupted the way that various processes in your body work.

Maria: Yeah, and you can say that many people have been misled about different drugs in the short term, they have a good effect, but in the long run, people start suffering from... And then Rory throws in super band 9 words about diseases. And Rory just went to town. You go like endocrine disruption.

Rory: Is it obvious? Oh God. Okay. So…

Maria: Ssteoporosis. How do you even say that?

Rory: Osteoporosis. So if you don't want to remember these words, you could just say your hormones are dysregulated or don't work properly. Osteoporosis is when your bones begin to fall to pieces as well. And anxiety is what people feel whenever I start using words like endocrine system and osteoporosis.

Maria: Dear listener, our strategy is to remember two words, specific words about diseases. And just show them off in the test. For the examiner to understand that you are a Band 9 speaker. So that's why osteoporosis, osteoporosis, or obesity. What's this endocrine?

Rory: Endocrine disruption occurs when the system that regulates your hormones stops functioning properly. So, for example, people who, well, men who take lots of steroids disrupt the production of testosterone in their bodies and suffer all kinds of problems as a result.

Maria: So dear listener, if you can't remember this oste, I already forgot it, osteoporosis, osteoporosis, you can say like different diseases such as strokes, cancer, lung diseases, mental disorders. But remember osteoporosis and anxiety also, like mental disorders, like anxiety, depression. But these are kind of like easy words, like endocrine disruption is much better than osteoporosis. Some people don't have any health awareness. So before we get healthy, we should be aware of our health. So awareness is actually C1.

Rory: Ooh, really?

Maria: Yeah.

Rory: All of these random advanced words, which are not… they don't sound advanced, advanced I should say.

Maria: So when you have awareness, you have the knowledge that something exists. For example, now you are aware of this rice situation. You know that white rice is, well, not really healthy… well, is not as healthy as red rice, whole grain red rice. Even brown rice is not as healthy as red rice. Yeah, you can Google, you can Google it, dear listener, feel free to disagree with me. And now you're aware of different types of rice, like red, brown, and bleached. Yeah, Rory, you said bleached rice. And parents should set a good example for their children. So they should look after themselves. And here the phrasal verb is to look after themselves. So to take good care of themselves, to stay healthy themselves. And if you want a course on phrasal verbs, like look after and some other super verbs, the link is in the description. We have a course on phrasal verbs for your band eight and nine. Yeah. And it's crazy when like parents smoke and drink, they eat fast food, and they say, no, my child, you don't do that. You just go and eat red rice with vegetables and I'm going to go and have a pizza. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So this is sending confusing messages. So parents send confusing messages to their children, but they have to embody a good example. So if a person embodies a good example, they set a good example for their kids. Schools should be responsible for providing health education, for giving health education, because it's their job to educate people. And then Rory raises a question like, what is healthy? Seriously, like what is health education? Because what is healthy varies from place to place. What is healthy in one country may not be healthy in another country. This is like an interesting question. We live in a multicultural society. Yeah, but generally we have some general health guidelines like do sports, do exercise, like drink water.

Rory: But this is the thing. How much is appropriate here? And of course, meditation is a very culturally sensitive thing because there will be certain places in the world where that's not possible. It's treated as a taboo thing to do. So a lot of this is dictated not only by people's individual biology, but also by the society and culture in which they live. So it's not easy. It's very hard, which is why I had to write 3000 words on it or whatever it was. And that was fun, but it was also extremely confusing.

Maria: You see the lesson and this is a Band 9 idea like Rory digs deep. He kind of gives sophisticated ideas. Yeah, the easiest answer would be, yes, schools should be responsible for educating children on how to be healthy. But Rory is, you know, like, oh, so difficult, difficult life. Rory, you mentioned the government campaigns. So kind of campaigns, when, what is a campaign? Kind of promotion of health and like different charity events where they tell you about health or, for example, like marathons, they also kind of promote sports and health. But usually we read articles online, we read social media, we listen to influencers, to bloggers, but also like there are websites, official websites like the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organisation, and like different universities, government websites, the British Nutrition Foundation. And in the previous episode, I told you about psychologytoday.com and Sew Scientist, for example. You can also find articles on health from the official journals, they're called. And, of course, a dear listener from Rory and Maria, where can you find information about keeping healthy from IELTS Speaking for Success podcast?

Rory: Or ways to be aware about how it might be different from culture to culture.

Maria: Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back to you in our next episode. Check out our course on phrasal verbs. The link is in the description. Bye.

Rory: Bye.

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