Enrich Your Vocabulary #1: Physical Health

So this video series focuses on vocabulary for common irets and toful topics

This video focuses on health vocabulary. Other videos will cover other topics such as education

work, family food, environment, entertainment, crime, art, money, space, and so on. Health itself

can be divided into mental health and physical health. And in this video we're just focusing on the

latter, physical health vocabulary. We'll see to We'll see 20 words and phrases in total

As this is the first video in the series, I want to explain the rationale behind choosing the words

If you just want to see the words themselves, skip to the next section. The majority of the words we'll look at come from word lists for academic study

We'll use the academic word list. We'll also use the academic vocabulary list, the academic collocation list

A useful list if you want to show the awareness of collocation that's needed for aisles band 7 and above

For health, there are also some other good lists, the bitter school vocabulary list, which has a section on health

the medical academic word list and the medical academic vocabulary list. If you really want to enrich your vocabulary, you need to focus on mid-frequency vocabulary

broadly speaking vocabulary can be divided into three kinds, high-frequency, which is the first

3,000 words, sometimes called 1K, 2K and 3K,000, mid-frequency, which is 4K to 9K,000 and above

Why is mid-frequency important? Well, reading requires knowledge of about 8,000 to 9,000 words for comfortable

comprehension. A former colleague used to call this kind of vocabulary expensive vocabulary

It's a kind of vocabulary you need to skillfully use uncommon lexical items or to show the wide range

of vocabulary and the variety in range of vocabulary needed for iotts or tofo. That's why I'm making

use of other lists in this series, not just the academic word list, because 84% of the words in

the academic word list are actually considered high frequency, with only 15% in the bid frequency range

That contrast with the AVL which has 39% in the mid-frequency range

So let's take a look at the 20 words and start enriching our vocabulary. We're going to see all the words and phrases in context

So here's the context for the first four words and phrases. Long working hours and work stress are linked to poor diet and reduced physical activity

which can increase the risk of obesity. So the first word we'll focus on here is diet

And the meaning here is not the common meaning of to go on a diet or to lose weight. Diet is a fancy word for the kinds of food a person or animal usually eats

The adjective is dietary. Broadly speaking there are two kinds of diet you can have a healthy or a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables or a poor or unhealthy diet with also fried foods fast food sugary foods

Remember that to score well on the arts and total exam, you do need good awareness of collocations

such as healthy diet, poor diet. Next to phrase physical activity, and this is an adjective and noun collocation in the academic collocation list

although the word physical is also in the academic word list and activity in the academic vocabulary list

and this means any movement of the body that needs energy. For example, cycling, football, or even just walking

Next word is obesity. This is a noun and it means being very overweight

The adjective is obese. Overweight itself is another good word to study

And the difference between obese and overweight relates to the BMI or body mass index

which is your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters

So the more you weigh, the higher your BMI. Overweight means having a BMI more than 25

as being obese means more than 30 so obesity is worse than being overweight

Although obesity and overweight are very common words when we're talking about health

They're in the 6K list of words In other words, 5,001 to 6,000

But definitely useful words to use in your writing And common words to find in a reading text about health

Final word here is linked Which is actually in the academic word list

And the academic vocabulary list To be linked means to be connected and it's usually followed by two, sometimes followed by with

There are actually some good collocations in the ACL with linked, to be closely linked, directly linked, strongly linked, and inextricably linked

So those are good phrases to know as well. A similar word also in the academic word list and the academic vocabulary list

is to contribute to something, which means to be one of the causes

For example, marketing by fast food companies contributes to unhealthy diets and poor health among children

So that's the phrase unhealthy. diets again. Make sure you're using these ones properly. So with both of these the cause comes

first, the effect comes second. For example, marketing by fast food companies is the cause. Unhealthy

diets and poor health among children, the effect. Let's see some more words now again in context

Consumption of processed foods with a high calorie content can lead to increased risk of developing

long-lasting illness. First where there is consumption and now the verb is consume. And consume is just a

fancy word meaning to eat or drink. Process is an adjective which relates to food and means

treated with chemicals to preserve it or give it extra colour or taste. Calorie? This is a measurement

for the energy value of food A good collocation with the word we just seen high calorie diet This would be a diet with a lot of energy which is okay if you a sports person but if you just a regular person or couch potato it one that could lead to you being overweight or obese

And increased risk, which is an adjective cocation from the ACL. Now I have the phrase long-lasting

illness there. We could actually enrich that phrase a little bit by talking about a chronic illness

Chronic means lasting for a long time, and it comes from the Greek word chronos, meaning time

Another phrase you might know with this route is chronological order, which relates to events being in time order

Now that sentence is a bit short, let's make it longer by giving some examples of chronic illnesses, such as high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes

So obesity is a word we've just seen. Diabetes is a very useful word if you're writing about health and a very common word if you're reading about health

It's a very common disease, especially among people who are overweight or obese, and it's a disease that causes blood sugar levels to be

be too high. Another use for word is intake and this is a similar word to consumption. It basically

means what is consumed and it collocates with the word calorie and also with the word dietary, dietary

intake. For example the recommended daily calorie intake is 2,000 calories per day for women and

2,500 for men, though the ideal amount depends on factors such as age and level of physical activity

The highlighting there by the way shows words we've already looked at, calorie and physical

activity. Let's see another couple of phrases now. People who live unhealthy lifestyles are more likely to

die prematurely from cancer or cardiovascular disease. So die prematurely is a verb and adverb

collocation. A related collocation is premature death, adjective and noun, and that's in the academic

collocation list. The word premature is actually a mid-frequency vocabulary item. The prefix

pre-means before, and the root mature means ready, so premature means too early

Premature death, therefore, is death at an early age. For example, somebody dying from cancer at the age of 40 or 50

Another collocation with that word is premature birth, which you probably wouldn't use in an essay on health

But if the topic is smoking, premature birth is one of the possible effects of women smoking when they're pregnant

And cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular is another mid-frequency word, and it means related to heart and blood vessels

This is similar to heart disease, although heart disease is actually a kind of cardiovascular

vascular disease. Another word we'll look at is excessive. This is an adjective, it's in the academic

vocabulary list, meaning too much. For example, the 2012 study found that over half of premature

deaths were due to unhealthy lifestyle factors such as poor diet inactivity obesity excessive alcohol intake and smoking That example sentence is nice there only one new word in there but you can see how

some of the words and phrases with use can be combined together for the topic of health

Another collocation from the ACL high levels. This is an adjective and noun collocation and it's

usually followed by off. Fast food contains high levels of cholesterol, sugar and salt

which can be harmful to health. The word cholesterol is a nice one to enrich your vocation

with and this is a fat like substance found in the cells in your body and also common in food

from animals for example meat and dairy products in itself it's not actually dangerous because it's

already in your body the problem comes when you eat too much of it a lot of the words we've seen have

actually been quite negative words which would be quite common in a topic about health let's finish

with two positive words promote and beneficial increasing access to healthy foods and

opportunities for physical activity in school are beneficial in promoting health in young people

Beneficial means helpful or advantageous. Or promote means to support something or to help something

become successful. So that's it. That's the 20 words and phrases related to physical health

I'll summarize by categorizing the words and phrases. So we had two cause-effect transitions

Is linked to? Contributes to? Most of the other words can be categorized either as cause of health

problems or the effect of health problems or the problem itself and the solution and this kind of

topic is really common in the arts exam for example what are the causes of growth in overweight people in

society and how can this problem be solved so cause words are cholesterol processed excessive

high levels effect words are cardiovascular disease premature death diabetes obesity or obese

overweight, increased risk and chronic. And solutions are words such as beneficial and promote

Words like physical activity, calorie and diet could be a cause or could be a solution

For example, lack of physical activity, high calorie diet and unhealthy diet are causes

Solutions would be to increase physical activity, to eat a low calorie diet or to eat a balanced diet

And we also saw some fairly neutral words to consume, consumption, and intake. So that's the 20 words and phrases. I hope you found them useful. For more on this

including other topics and exercises to practice these words and phrases, please visit the EAP Foundation

website, eAPfoundation.com forward slash enrich