Download Chapter 1: A Healthy Foundation

Chapter 1: A
Healthy Foundation
Lesson 2: Influences on Your Health
BELL ACTIVITY
 How do the people around
me affect my health?
What affects your health?
 The choices you make and the ways you
think and act have a strong effect on your
total health.
 These are the parts of your life over
which you have quite a bit of control.
 To make the best choices, you’ll need to
understand what these factors are and
what you can do about them.
Putting the Puzzle
Together
 Every person is an individual.
 Each life unfolds in its own way, guided
and molded by both personal choices
and outside factors.
Heredity and Environment
 Heredity: the passing on of traits from
biological parents to children.
 Some traits passed on through heredity
are:




Skin, eye, and hair color.
Body Build
Growth patterns
The tendency to get certain diseases.
Heredity traits are…
 “Built in” – you can’t choose them!
 Example: If your family has a history of
high numbers of dental cavities, you
should pay extra attention to your dental
care.
More About Heredity
 Scientists around the world have undertaken an
extensive exploration of the genetic factors that
contribute to human development. The U.S.
Department of Energy and the National Institutes of
Health are coordinating the Human Genome Project,
a 15-year effort to identify and map all the genes on
every chromosome in the human body. (The term
genome refers to all the genetic material in the
chromosomes of a particular organism.) The U.S.
project is part of a worldwide investigation into
genetics. Over 1,000 scientists representing more than
50 countries are members of the Human Genome
Organization (HUGO). Thus fart, results of these
studies indicate that there may be a specific gene for
nearly every human ability.
Environment…
 Environment is all the living and nonliving
things that surround you.
 Your home, neighborhood, and school.
 The air you breathe and the water you drink.
Closing Questions/Review
 Define the terms heredity and environment.
 Describe how you can use information about
hereditary traits to make health decisions.
 Identify three factors, other than heredity and
physical environment, that can have an
influence on a person’s health.
 Why are there laws about allowable levels of
environmental pollution?