a Healthy DIEt

Refresh What is a healthy diet?

A healthy diet

Having a healthy diet means that we take in the right nutrients to keep our body working properly. Each type of nutrient has got a different function and we need to have a balanced diet to give our body what it needs.

The food wheel tells us how much of each group we should eat. We need to consume the foods in the red and yellow parts of the wheel less frequently than those in the green part of the wheel.

1 a) A 10-year-old child who is growing. b) A retired man who likes gardening and reading. c) A 15-year-old athlete who trains every day.

Read the descriptions below. What should they eat?

Create a balanced diet for one day for each person.

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Relative pronouns

A 10-year-old child who is growing should eat...

• In groups, create a healthy meal plan for this weekend. Consider your needs and adapt the nutrients to them.

Good-quality nutrients

To be healthy, the nutrients that we take in must be of good quality. It is important to buy food that is produced locally because it takes less time to transport it from the farm to the shop. These products will be fresher and their nutrients will be of a higher quality.

It is important to check the food label. This tells you where a product is from, its ingredients and often its nutritional score. Each product has got a letter, which goes from A (for the healthiest product) to E (for products that we should eat only sometimes).

2 In pairs, identify the good-quality nutrients in the box below.

Tomatoes grown at home Eggs from the local farm Imported potato crisps

Sweets from the United States

Bread from your local baker Meat from your local market

• Collect some labels from different foods that you have got at home or at school. In groups, decide how healthy each of the foods is.