How Travel Can Increase Your Longevity
Travel can increase longevity by helping people establish and maintain a healthy lifestyle, says Dr. David Lipschitz, director of the Center on Aging at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and an author and syndicated columnist on aging.
Travel for Long Life
According to Lipschitz, the two most important factors for longevity are health and happiness, and travel helps to foster both. Planning a trip helps seniors in these ways:
Travel keeps their minds sharp.
Increased opportunities for walking and other exercise help older adults stay fit.
Making new friends will increase longevity.
Connection Increases Longevity
Traveling with a spouse or significant other is a great way for couples to reconnect through shared experiences, rekindle romance and increase intimacy. Researchers have found that having an intimate relationship as we grow older is a critical factor for health and longevity. Married men live an average of 10 years longer than those who aren’t married, and married women live approximately three years longer.
"Love is one thing that is needed for long life, and traveling will fuel it," Lipschitz told the Dallas Morning News. “Traveling to spend time alone together will not only broaden your horizons, but make you a healthier person."
Senior Travel is Changing
But the way older adults travel is changing dramatically, and it will change even further as more baby boomers reach their senior years with more energy, better health, and more disposable income than previous generations.
"What characterizes our generation is that we're very, very individualistic, and that's going to affect the way we will be traveling," Lipschitz told Knight Ridder Newspapers. "We are a well-traveled generation. Where haven't we been? Now I want to go to Antarctica, to the Galapagos Islands, to Mongolia. I want travel that makes me feel there's nothing in life I cannot do."
Seniors are Changing the Travel Industry
The global population is aging so rapidly that the travel industry will be forced to accommodate their needs and preferences -- from more healthful dining choices to a wider range of group and independent travel options tailored to seniors.
Some of these changes are already taking place. For example, Elderhostel, the world’s largest educational travel organization for adults 55 and over, has introduced more intergenerational travel and a Road Scholar program that offers more active and independent travel without the usual age restriction.
"For a number of years, we've been preparing for this next wave, this next generation aging into retirement years," said James Moses, Elderhostel's president. "We have some very specific differences between Road Scholar and Elderhostel."
The new travel program is more active and tailored to self-exploration than the traditional Elderhostel Road Scholar trips, which include comfortable accommodations, morning lectures, and afternoon field trips, always in a group that explores themes together.
Increased Longevity Brings Travel At Any Age
But it’s not only baby boomers who are starting to hit the road in record numbers. As more seniors enjoy healthy and active longevity, they make plans to get around -- the world. Lipschitz notes that 50 percent of America’s 85-year-olds now live independently and have more lifestyle options than ever before.
"They can do anything they want,” he says. “I don't think major bus tours are the wave of the future."
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good food good health
In the elementary grades, particularly the lower-elementary level, children know that there are different foods–some "good" and some "bad." They also seem to understand that a person's height and size can depend on what he/she eats. In this investigation, students will use online resources to help them explore how food can affect their overall health.
As you go through this lesson, you also should be aware that younger elementary students often believe that the contents of the body are what they have seen being put into or coming out of it. They also know that food is related to growing and being strong and healthy, but they are not aware of the physiological mechanisms. You should make it clear that food is a source of matter for growth, not a requirement for growth.
This lesson is the second of a Science NetLinks three part series. It works in conjunction with Nutrition 1: Food and the Digestive System, a lesson that focuses on the necessity of nutrients, and Nutrition 3: Got Broccoli?, the final lesson that encapsulates what students have learned about nutrition.
This lesson addresses only the first part of the benchmark. Additional activities that focus on how, as people grow up, the amounts and kinds of food and exercise needed by the body may change, will be necessary for students to gain a full understanding of this benchmark.
MOTIVATION
Have students read 5 A Day Facts on the Team Nutrition site. The study could be printed ahead of time and distributed to students.
Note: You should structure this activity in a way that matches the reading levels of your students. Students could read the article on their own, or you could read it aloud as a class.
Ask students these questions based on this information:
How many fruits and vegetables should kids eat each day? (They should eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.)
Name some reasons why it's important to eat five or more fruits and vegetables each day. (Some reasons include: eating 5 or more fruits and vegetables each day plays an important role in preventing heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, stroke and birth defects; fruits and vegetables can also increase energy and assist in weight loss; as a bonus, fruits and vegetables are tasty, convenient, easy and quick to prepare.)
Instead of fruits and vegetables, what is a big snack food for kids? (French fries is the big snack food. One-quarter of all vegetables eaten by elementary students are French fries.)
What is the average fruit and vegetable serving for 6 to 12 year olds? (It is 2.4.)
What are some of the troubling findings of this study? (Answers may vary. Encourage students to explain their answers.)
Next, have students study the eating guide, Eat the Five Food Group Way from Nutrition Explorers. This guide not only shows the amount of fruits and vegetables that should be consumed, but the number of servings of dairy products, meat/poultry/fish, and breads/grains.
Keeping in mind these figures, ask students these questions:
How many servings of meat/poultry/fish should kids have in a day? (They should have two servings a day.)
How many servings of dairy products should kids have in a day? (They should have three servings a day.)
How many servings of breads/grains should kids have in a day? (They should have five to six servings.)
After discussing the guide, talk about how kids as a whole could go about eating the recommended number of servings from the five major food groups. Ask students why it is important to eat the right foods. Have a discussion with them about their various views.
If time allows, you may wish to extend this activity by having students survey their classmates about typical snack choices. This survey can be done within the class, grade, or school-wide.
DEVELOPMENT
Have students to go to the Nutrition Café's Nutrition Sleuth game. This game can provide students with a good introduction to how vitamins and minerals are essential to keep everything working well.
Since there are seven different cases students can attempt to solve, you can break up students into teams and have each team tackle a case. Have students write down what they learn about the nutrients in their science journals as they solve the cases.
Once the teams have solved the cases, have them report to the class what they learned. You might want to create a table for the whole class, using a large sheet of paper. List each of the cases included in the Nutrition Sleuth game and then write down the results of the students’ investigations by each case.
After the class has finished this exercise, ask students these questions:
What foods are good sources of calcium? How does calcium help keep everything working well?
What foods are good sources of iron? How does iron help keep everything working well?
Why is water so important for our bodies?
What foods are good sources of vitamin C? Why is it important to make sure we include vitamin C in our diets?
What food is an important source of vitamin A? How does vitamin A help keep everything working well?
What is an important nonfood source of vitamin D?
Why is vitamin D important for helping to prevent osteoporosis?
Where can you find folate? Why is folate important for helping to keep everything working well?
After completing this exercise, discuss the students’ answers with them.
To build on the concepts that vitamins and minerals are essential to keep everything in our bodies working well, provide students with the Take the 5 A Day Challenge chart. Ask students to follow the directions on the page and record the fruits and vegetables they ate the day before. Once students have recorded the fruits and vegetables, discuss the chart with your students and ask them these questions:
Did you manage to eat five fruits and vegetables a day?
If not, what can you do to reach the goal of eating five fruits and vegetables a day?
If you did manage to eat five fruits and vegetables a day, do you think that has a positive or negative impact on your health?
Why do you think it is important to eat five fruits and vegetables a day?
Once you have discussed the chart with them, ask students to think about the number of servings of each of the food groups they had the day before. You might want to create a chart and write down the number of servings per student for each of the food groups. Then, have students determine the average number of servings the class ate. Compare those numbers to the national averages for each of the food groups. Be sure to exclude French fries and potato chips for the vegetable group.
Discuss with students how they might increase the number of servings of food from the five food groups they eat in a day and the importance of eating a balanced diet in order to get the vitamins and nutrients they need to keep their bodies working well.
ASSESSMENT
A good way to assess students’ understanding of this material is to have them create a MyPlate poster themselves, based on the new MyPlate nutrition guide developed by the U.S. government, and use this poster to inform and encourage other students to eat the recommended servings from the five food groups.
To have students create the MyPlate, divide them into five different teams, each one concentrating on a particular food group. But, instead of just listing the five food groups and the number of servings that should be eaten from each, students also should include the types of food found in the food groups and the types of nutrients that can be obtained by eating those foods. They should state why the nutrients are important for helping to keep their bodies working well. Students also could illustrate the plate with pictures of the body parts for which these foods are particularly good.
To make the MyPlate itself, students can use a standard size poster board. The plate will have to be fairly large so that it can include all the information. Each of the pieces of the plate can be set up in the following way:
Name of Food Group
Recommended Number of Servings
Types of Food Found in Food Group
Nutrients
Benefits to Body
If possible, the poster can then be displayed in the school cafeteria to serve as a reminder to all the students in the school to eat the recommended daily servings of the five food groups.
1987年12月长城被列入《世界遗产名录》。
长城的主体工程是绵延万里的高大城墙，大都建在山岭最高处，沿着山脊把蜿蜒无尽的山势勾画出清晰的轮廓，塑造出奔腾飞跃、气势磅礴的巨龙，从而成为中华民族的象征。在万里城墙上，分布着百座雄关、隘口，成千上万座敌台、烽火台，打破了城墙的单调感，使高低起伏的地形更显得雄奇险峻，充满巨大的艺术魅力。
汉代继续对长城进行修建。从文帝到宣帝，修成了一条西起大宛贰师城，东至黑龙江北岸，全长近一万公里，古丝绸之路有一半的路程就沿着这条长城，是历史上最长的长城。 到了明代，为了防御鞑靼、瓦刺族的侵扰，从没间断过长城的修建，从洪武至万历，其间经过20次大规模的修建，筑起了一条西起甘肃的嘉峪关，东到辽东虎山，全长6350公里的边墙。（但据报道，1990年一个徒步走完长城全长的中国人的计步器显示的是6700公里。）
Scientific Name: Cuminum cyminum