What do you think? Catharine wants to live a long healthly life. Do you agree? Let us know what you think!

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What we can do to live a
LONG HEALTHY LIFE!!

We all love cakes, biscuits and crisps, but is there any point eating loads of them if we are damaging our health and how long we live?

The answer is no! You don’t want to live a short life and nor do I! There is way of enabling us to live a long healthy life!

We don’t have to eat these things, it’s our choice. If there is something that tastes good, but is not stuffed full of the artificial additives, salt, sugar or fat we should choose it!

We must have a lot of vitamins and minerals as it is these that stop us from being ill. They are found mainly in fruit and vegetables – this is why we should have 5 a day! We should have a good amount of protein as this is what lets us grow. The food group that we should have the most of though is carbohydrates. This gives us a slow release of energy. And we need to drink plenty of water – 2/3 of us don’t drink enough water each day!

It is very important to eat the right amount of each food group. We should not eat too much fat. We should try to avoid saturated fat completely as it gives you gives you a low metabolic rate leading to high cholesterol and heart disease.

There are several brands when you look that are healthier than the full fat things that we eat – just keep an eye out for them!

But, not just eating the right things will do the trick. The key is to use up as much energy as you take in! It is important that we try to keep our metabolic rate high by doing a lot of exercise. This means anything that makes you heart rate increase. E.g. Walking instead of going by car, watching less TV, netball, hockey, aerobics, going to the gym, running. We need to do at least 3 hours of exercise per week! But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to enjoy it! It can be your hobby. I enjoy hockey and so most of my 3 hours are taken up with that. It doesn’t mean that you can not do more than 3 hours either because if you are enjoying it, why would you stop! Remember, the key is to use up as much energy as you take in!

If you want to have a healthy life: eat well, drink well and do plenty of exercise.

Catherine (14), Guildford, Surrey