选修6 Unit 3 A healthy life-Reading
ADVICE FROM GRANDAD
Dear James,
It is a beautiful day here and I am sitting under the big tree at the end of the garden. I have just returned from a long bike ride to an old castle. It seems amazing that at my age I am still fit enough to cycle 20 kilometres in an afternoon. It's my birthday in two weeks time and I'll be 82 years old! I think my long and active life must be due to the healthy life I live.
This brings me to the real reason for my letter, my dear grandson. Your mother tells me that you started smoking some time ago and now you are finding it difficult to give it up. Believe me, I know how easy it is to begin smoking and how tough it is to stop. You see, during adolescence I also smoked and became addicted to cigarettes.
By the way, did you know that this is because you become addicted in three different ways? First, you can become physically addicted to nicotine, which is one of the hundreds of chemicals in cigarettes. This means that after a while your body becomes accustomed to having nicotine in it. So when the drug leaves your body, you get withdrawal symptoms. I remember feeling bad-tempered and sometimes even in pain. Secondly, you become addicted through habit. As you know, if you do the same thing over and over again, you begin to do it automatically. Lastly, you can become mentally addicted. I believed I was happier and more relaxed after having a cigarette, so I began to think that I could only feel good when I smoked. I was addicted in all three ways, so it was very difficult to quit. But I did finally manage.
When I was young, I didn't know much about the harmful effects of smoking. I didn't know, for example, that it could do terrible damage to your heart and lungs or that it was more difficult for smoking couples to become pregnant. I certainly didn't know their babies may have a smaller birth weight or even be abnormal in some way. Neither did I know that my cigarette smoke could affect the health of non-smokers. However, what I did know was that my girlfriend thought I smelt terrible. She said my breath and clothes smelt, and that the ends of my fingers were turning yellow. She told me that she wouldn't go out with me again unless I stopped! I also noticed that I became breathless quickly, and that I wasn't enjoying sport as much. When I was taken off the school football team because I was unfit, I knew it was time to quit smoking.
I am sending you some advice I found on the Internet. It might help you to stop and strengthen your resolve. I do hope so because I want you to live as long and healthy a life as I have.
Love from
Grandad
Reading and discussing
Before you read the poster below, discuss what you know about HIV/AIDS with your classmates. Make a list of words that you might come across in this poster.
HIV/AIDS:ARE YOU AT RISK?
HIV is a virus. A virus is a very small living thing that causes disease. There are many different viruses, for example, the flu virus or the SARS virus. HIV weakens a person's immune system; that is, the part of the body that fights disease. You can have HIV in your blood for a long time, but eventually HIV will damage your immune system so much that you body can no longer fight disease. This stage of the illness is called AIDS. If you develop AIDS, your chances of survival are very small.
HIV is spread through blood or the fluid that the body makes during sex. For a person to become infected, blood or sexual fluid that carries the virus, has to get inside the body through broken skin or by injection. One day scientists will find a cure for HIV/AIDS.
Until that happens, you need to protect yourself. Here are some things you can do to make sure you stay safe.
If you inject drugs:
do not share your needle with anyone else. Blood from another person can stay on or in the needle. If a person has HIV and you use the same needle, you could inject the virus into your own blood.
do not share anything else that a person has used while injecting drugs.Blood could have spilt on it.
If you have sex with a male or a female:
use a condom. This will prevent sexual fluid passing from one person to another.
The following statements are NOT true.
A person cannot get HIV the first time they have sex.WRONG. If one sexual partner has HIV, the other partner could become infected.
You can tell by looking at someone whether or not they have HIV.WRONG. Many people carrying HIV look perfectly healthy. It is only when the disease has progressed to AIDS that a person begins to look sick.
Only homosexuals get AIDS.WRONG. Anyone who has sex with a person infected with H1V/AIDS risks getting the virus. Women are slightly more likely to become infected than men.
If you hug, touch or kiss someone with AIDS or visit them in their home, you will get HIV/AIDS.WRONG.You can only get the disease from blood or sexual fluid.Unfortunately, people with HIV sometimes lose their friends because of prejudice.Many people are afraid that they will get HIV/AIDS from those infected with HIV!AIDS. For the same reason, some AIDS patients cannot find anyone to look after them when they are sick.
You can get HIV/AIDS from mosquitoes.WRONG. There is no evidence of this.