Heart Health A lesson for Life Skills What is the Heart?

Unhealthy hearts  If you have an unhealthy heart, the rest of your body is going to have problems too, because every part of your body needs the oxygen that comes from your blood.  Your heart is a muscle that pumps the blood through your arteries everywhere it needs to go.

Words to Know  We will talk about these words today: Blood Pressure Cholesterol Blood Sugar Arteries Veins Clots

Arteries and Veins  When you breath in, your lungs help get oxygen into your blood.  Arteries are like little tubes that take the fresh blood from the heart and send it out to the different parts of your body.  After your body uses up the oxygen in the blood, it needs to go back to the heart and get more.  Veins take used up blood from all over your body back to the heart. (They are the ones that look blue.)

You might be unhealthy if...  You eat mostly red meat and other fatty foods  You don’t eat very many fresh vegetables  How many times a day do you eat vegetables?  What about red meat?

Blood Pressure  High blood pressure is bad for you because it can cause damage to your arteries. High blood pressure  You can get high blood pressure from heredity (because your parents have it) or from the foods you eat.  Too much salt can cause high blood pressure.  Do you know how the Dr. measures blood pressure?

Blood Sugar  When you eat sugar, some of it gets into your blood, and your body has ways of getting all the sugar back out of your blood.  If you eat way too much sugar, your body won’t be able to keep up with you, and this could cause Type 2 Diabetes.Type 2 Diabetes  If there is too much sugar in your blood, the sugar can make tiny cuts in your arteries.

Cuts in Your Arteries  Cuts in your arteries (the little tubes that carry fresh blood away from the heart) are called “nicks”.  Your body has a special way of fixing them.  What happens when you get a cut on the outside of your body? (Like on your finger) What happens when you get a cut on the outside of your body?  Blood clots are like scabs.

Cholesterol  What have you heard about cholesterol on TV?  Most people don’t know that there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.  Can you guess where they come from? Good food vs. bad food From our family Cholesterol Video

Cholesterol fixes cuts  When your arteries get a nick or cut, cholesterol helps to fix it.  Good cholesterol is like a bandaid. It is smooth. It covers up the cut, and lets the blood go by.  Bad cholesterol makes a mess! It’s not smooth, and all the other parts of your blood get stuck to it. Bad cholesterol and all the things that stick to it block your arteries so that blood can’t get through.

Blood Clots  resources/videoLibrary/clotting.aspx