PE AND HEALTH 11(QUARTER 3, LESSON 3)
Many of us try to live a healthy lifestyle. We do various things to become fit and to achieve our
desired physique — oftentimes without first knowing and understanding the consequences. Our health
becomes at risk and prone to different risks that can affect our capacity to do daily physical activity. We
need to realize that there are some common health practices — particularly when dealing with stress—
that need to be corrected right away, especially among the young ones. Some stress-coping measures
affect or show in a person’s eating or sleeping habits.
Eating Habits, Sleep, and Stress Management: What Goes Wrong?
Eating Habits
We can always eat the food that we want. There is nothing wrong with eating. It only goes wrong if
we consume less or more than what our body needs; also, when we eat unhealthy food. This can lead to
being underweight, overweight, or even obese. It is alarming to see that many are suffering from
malnutrition, overweight, and obesity.
Underweight people are often found to suffer from malnutrition due to lack of adequate nutrients in the
body. Many of them do not get the right amount of calories to fuel their bodies thus, they tend to lack the
energy to do regular tasks at home, school, and work. Their immune system also gets weak and
compromised, making them prone to health risk issues such as anemia and osteoporosis.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder wherein a person is abnormally underweight, has an intense fear of
gaining, and an abnormal understanding of body weight, often due to coping with emotional problems
stemming from self-worth.
People with anorexia use extreme efforts to prevent weight gain and keep on losing weight by restricting
food intake, exercising excessively, or misusing diet aids, diuretics, and laxatives. These tend to significantly
interfere with activities in their lives.
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Overeating is also found to be one of the leading causes of overweight and obesity. Eating too much,
especially processed food and sugary drinks, coupled with a sedentary lifestyle contribute significantly to
weight gain. The calories consumed, particularly from fats and sugars, have to be burned off through
physical activity or exercise. Otherwise, these calories will be just be stored in the body as fat.
Overweight and obese people often encounter a lot of physical and emotional struggles in their daily lives.
They often have a hard time doing simple tasks such as tying their shoelaces or walking up a short flight of
stairs. They also find themselves the subject of bullying. Furthermore, they are also at risk of developing
other health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, among others.
Sleep Management
Sleep is essential to everyone’s health. Normally, we need about 6 to 8 hours of night sleep
everyday to allow the body to rest and regenerate. When we wake up in the morning after a good night’s
sleep, we feel fresh and energetic. We become effective and productive in our daily activities. However, a
lot of people, in particular teens, practice bad sleeping habits such as the following:
1. Staying up all night - This is the most common bad sleeping habit of most people. In order to submit a
project, a paper, or some other work at the last minute, they cram to finish it, staying up all night until they
are done. Some people just spend the night reading or doing other stuff that they just do not want to
postpone for another time.
2. Internet Addiction - Social media is massively addictive. Many people would spend a lot of their time
browsing social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube. They are awake all night to converse and play
with their friends and forgo sleeping on time. This results in tiredness and unproductiveness in work, in
school, and even at home.
3. Eating Before Sleeping - Eating could be one of the things we do that give us comfort—but should be
discouraged just before bedtime. Eating before sleeping can cause discomfort preventing us from falling
asleep easily. When we eat too close to our bedtime, it means that we go to our bed while digesting. This
can cause acid reflux which makes a person lose sleep. It is best to eat 4 hours before falling asleep so we
can be sure that our digestive system has done its job.
Stress Management
We need to deal with the fact that stress is part of our lives. Stress happens for many reasons –
environmental factors, fatigue, too much work, illness, and loneliness. It is inevitable; hence, needs to be
handled properly. Handling stress seems to be tough to do but we need to learn how to cope with it the
right way. If not properly dealt with, it can lead to many health concerns—difficulties in sleeping, poor
immunity, hypertension, and even heart disease. One may also perform poorly in physical activities
because of stress. However, while some may be able to deal with stress, others may not and resort to
ineffective—or worst, unhealthy—means of dealing with stress.
Examples of such means that can be detrimental to health are the following:
1. Smoking
2. Bad Eating Habits – Skipping meals and/or overeating
3. Excessive alcohol intake
4. Excessive sleeping
5. Procrastinating – Trying to hide and escape the problem using delaying tactics rather than facing the
problem
According to the World Health Organization, in 2012, out of 56 million deaths worldwide, 38 million
were due to cardiovascular diseases. Knowing this, making the decision to be aware of our health and to
change to a healthier lifestyle—through balanced diet, regular physical activity, and enough sleep—would
be to our advantage.
