Health Promotion App – Kids http://kids.aspitnord.dk Gambia Sat, 15 Dec 2018 12:23:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.9 Chapter 4 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/chapter-4-2/ Tue, 25 Sep 2018 07:49:14 +0000 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/?p=1454

Hand Washing

You have already learnt that we can get sick, if virus and harmful bacteria enter our body through our mouth, nose and eyes, through scratches of the skin, when we eat and drink and when giving birth.

How can we protect ourselves from virus and bacteria?

The best advice is to keep your hands clean:

  • Wash your hands every time you have been to the toilet
  • Wash your hands before you cook and before you eat
  • Wash your hands when you have been together with someone sick
  • Wash your hands when you have touched soil and unclean water

Watch this video about hand washing:
Hand washing

The importance of hand washing

FACTS

Having clean hands is the best you can do to avoid getting sick from virus and bacteria

What else can you do

  • You can clean your teeth every morning and every evening
  • You can wash scratches and cuts of your skin with clean water and afterwards dress the wound daily with clean linen
  • When you have caught a cold you should avoid coughing and sneezing, when you are close to other people
  • You can clean vegetables thoroughly with clean water before eating it
  • You can boil and fry meat thoroughly before eating it

And Finally

  • You can avoid mosquito bites by sleeping under a mosquito net
  • You can remove still water pools close to your home so that the mosquitos can´t place their eggs there
  • Make sure that help in relation to delivery is performed with clean hands and boiled water
  • Use condom when you are having sex, unless you want to have children.

Whats Next

  • By now you know how your body works,
  • how you can make your body healthy and strong
  • what happens if you get sick and
  • how you avoid getting sick

All that´s left for you to do is to answer a few questions on the next page.

Before you do that, please answer this question:

Do you agree that your body is fantastic?

Hopefully you have – together with your friends – said hallo to your body and found the key to knowing your body better.

Thank you. Your Mr. Bean

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Chapter 3 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/chapter-3-1/ Mon, 24 Sep 2018 08:49:26 +0000 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/?p=1420

Virus and Bacteria

Virus and bacteria can make us sick or ill

Bacteria and virus can provoke illness. But what are these guys and why are some of them good guys and some of them bad guys for us?

Bacteria and virus are so very tiny, that you cannot see them with your naked eye. Bacteria are a sort of micro ”insects” and virus are a sort of micro-micro ”insects”. You need 1.000 bacteria holding hands to reach from one end of an ordinary ant to the other. And you need 1.000 virus to reach from one end of a bacteria to the other end.

Bacteria are all over. You can find them in the river, in the water down the earth, inside the earth itself, inside all plants and animals and on and inside all human beings. Most bacteria are not harmful to us.  Some bacteria we even cannot live without, because they assist in the stomach and the intestines to dissolve the food we eat into tiny, tiny parts. If the bacteria are inside our stomach and intestines all of them are good to us, because they make sure, that there is no space for harmful bacteria. Even bacteria living on our skin are good for us, because they prevent harmful bacteria to settle down.

Virus are harmful micro-micro “insects”, that enter and exploit plants, bacteria, animals and human beings, because that’s the only way they can multiply.

If you want to repeat facts about bacteria and virus, watch this video:

Cold, Flu, Tuberculosis and Diarrhea

These are the ways we can catch a cold, get the flu, get tuberculosis and get diarrhea. Watch closely these videos:

 

 

  • The food we eat and the water we drink might contain virus or harmful bacteria from the soil or from animal or human stools. In this way virus and harmful bacteria get directly into our stomach and intestines
  • When we get a scratch from a piece of wood or a rusty nail, harmful bacteria are transferred into our blood
  • While giving birth the mother loses blood and at the same time she is at risk for getting harmful bacteria into her blood veins
  • We can get a bite from a mosquito by which a stream of bacteria is sent into our blood veins. The mosquito had the bacteria from another human being or an animal
  • When we get close to someone who is sick and coughs and sneezes, tiny drops that contain virus or harmful bacteria may enter our mouth, nose or eyes
  • When we shake hands with someone, who has caught a cold and has virus and harmful bacteria on his hand, we may get sick if later we rub our eyes or put a finger into our mouth

What happens in a sick body

What happens in your body, when you get sick? 

When virus or harmful bacteria get into your body, they are immediately attacked by the body. White blood cells and lymph are directed to the virus and bacteria to destroy them. You can watch the attack, when the intrusion takes place in a scratch of your skin. It´s called inflammation and it is good for you, it repairs your skin.

No matter which parts of your body the virus and harmful bacteria have entered, the white blood cells will penetrate the walls of the blood veins find them and try to destroy them. Take a look below at how the immune system works.

How the immune system works

How the immune system works
Throughout our body we have a network of lymphatic vessels, like we have blood veins. The network contains a liquid called lymph. The lymph helps the white blood cells kill the virus and harmful bacteria.

If the white blood cells and the lymph don´t immediately succeed in killing the virus and harmful bacteria, we get sick.

But our body has one more weapon for the fight: It can turn up the temperature of our body; we get a fever. This means we get a temperature above 38° C and our skin will be chilly and pale or quite the opposite, burning hot and we sweat. We can also get the chills, we can feel sick and we can have a head ache.

Bacteria and virus don´t like the fever, but the fever makes the white blood cells and the lymph work faster.

If our temperature exceeds 40° C our skin will be red.

If our temperature exceeds 42,6° C we can die, because the high temperature destroys important substances throughout our body.

FACTS

If your body is healthy and strong it will normally kill most of the virus and harmful bacteria, that enters your body. White blood cells and lymph do most of the job, but fever can assist as well

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Chapter 2 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/chapter-2-2/ Thu, 20 Sep 2018 07:08:17 +0000 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/?p=1332

What to do

Your body is fantastic. It can take a lot, but not everything. You should treat it with respect.

Eat healthy food and drink clean water, so that your stomach and intestines feel good. Healthy food and clean water do not contain harmful bacteria and virus. When you don´t have a stomach ache, when your stools are fine and you don´t have a fever, your body is normally fit for fight.

Healthy food is well prepared food. Vegetables must be washed with clean (boiled) water and meat must be boiled or fried.

Drinking water must be boiled.

What to eat

Click here to see the food pyramid

The food at the bottom of the pyramid should be the main part of your diet, while the things in the tiny triangle at the top you should only enjoy occasionally.

The food between the top and the bottom is healthy, but you should not eat too much of it.

By the way, a very important part of your everyday diet is missing in the pyramid. Which one? Take a guess and find afterwards the right answer by pressing this button.

Click here to see what’s missing

What else to do

Your muscles like to be used to walking, running, cooking, cleaning, singing and dancing, but not too much. How do you know, when it is too much? It´s too much when the nerves send messages to your head, that tells you, that it hurts. You can feel it if you make too many push-ups.

If you don´t use your muscles they get weak. If you for instance break an arm, you will find that the muscles of the broken arm very soon are reduced until you are able to use them again.

What not to do

Don´t harm your fine inner organs. If you smoke tobacco or drink too much alcohol your liver, your heart, your kidneys and your nerves are affected, so that they after a while make you sick. Look at these videos:
What happens after smoking 60 cigarettes?

Smoking is harmful

How do you know what to do and what not to do?

Listen to your body! It´s so wise!

What does your body tell you?

  • When you need something to eat, your body gives you a hunger feeling or a stomach ache, that disappear as soon as you get something to eat
  • When you need something to drink, your body gives you a thirsty feeling and perhaps a head ache, that disappear as soon as you get some water to drink
  • When your muscles give you great pain, they are not happy, they want you to stop using them for a while. Otherwise they may break, so that you can´t use them for a week or two
  • When you cough, your lungs or your throat are not happy, something prevents the lungs from having the necessary amount of oxygen
  • When you have a stomach ache your stomach or your intestines are not happy, because the food you have eaten or the water you have been drinking was bad or because you are hungry
  • When you have a head ache your head is not happy. A head ache can be caused by many things, for instance eating and drinking bad food and water.
  • When you have a tooth ache your nerves tell you that you probably have a hole in a tooth because you haven’t brushed your teeth well enough
  • When you have a fever, all your body is not happy, and you´ll must find out, what causes the fever

FACTS

Your body gives you all the information you need to know, it tells you whether you are well or not

Listen to your body and act on what it is telling you. That´s the key to your good health

WHAT`S NEXT

  • Now you know how your body works when you want to walk, run, work, cook, sing and dance and
  • you know how you can support your body so that it stays healthy.

But most people are not healthy all the time. They get sick. We now turn to how we get sick and how your body reacts to that. Go to chapter 3.

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Chapter 5 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/chapter-5/ Thu, 21 Sep 2017 08:04:29 +0000 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/?p=397
How often do you brush your teeth?

If you don’t brush your teeth, what do you do to keep your teeth healthy?

How often should you brush your teeth?

At least after breakfast in the morning and before you go to sleep in the evening.

Is eating sugar good or bad for your teeth?

Bad! When bacteria in bits of food left on your teeth eat sugar they produce acid, and you get holes in your teeth.

Are vegetables and fresh fruit good or bad for your teeth?

Good! Make your teeth stronger.

Are soft drinks good or bad for your teeth?

Bad! As bad as sugar.

Do you have to use tooth paste to brush your teeth?

No, but it is nice and can make your teeth stronger.

How do you cure a toothache?

Rub a drop of clove oil, peppermint oil or sea salt on the sore area.

Can you see bacteria and viruses with your own eyes?

No, you need a microscope. An ant is 1.000 times bigger than a bacteria and a bacteria is 1.000 times bigger than a virus.

Why is hand washing important?

To avoid getting viruses and harmful bacteria into your body through your mouth, nose, eyes and bruises.

How do bacteria multiply?

By division.

How do viruses multiply?

They are parasites on human cells inside our body.

Are bacteria harmful to us?

Some are and many are most useful, for instance for our digestion.

Are vira harmful to us?

Yes.

For how long can viruses stay alive outside of our body?

Normally from seconds to minutes.

What causes the flu and how do you get it?

Virus causes the flu and you get it from other people f.i. when they sneeze

What causes tuberculosis and how do you get it?

Bacteria causes tuberculosis and you get it from other people who suffer from tuberculosis f.i. when they sneeze.

What causes earache?

Bacteria or virus causes earache.

How do you cure attacks from bacteria and virus?

Antibiotics can defeat bacteria, but not virus. Your immune system can normally defeat both bacteria and virus.

How does a female mosquito get infected with the malaria parasite?

She gets infected when she bites a person who is infected.

How does a female mosquito transmit the malaria parasite to humans?

When the infected mosquito bites a human.

When do the female mosquitoes bite?

Normally between sunset and sunrise.

How can you reduce the risk of mosquito bites?

By using mosquito net, by putting screens on your windowes, by garbage removal around your house, by filling up holes around your house that contains still water and by agreeing with your neighbours to do the same.

Who is most vulnerable to mosquito bites?

Children less than 5 years old, mothers rights after giving birth and others with a weak immune system.

What do our lungs do for us?

They make sure that oxygen from the air gets into our blood and that carbon dioxide gets from the blood to the air. Without these functions we could not live.

What do cigarettes do for us?

Smoking tobacco gives us a high (quicker hearth beat, quicker breathing, happy-feeling).

What do cigarettes ALSO do for us?

Smoking tobacco is addictive and gives us a higher risk of lung cancer, asthma, hearth disease, stroke, cancer of the mouth, larynx, bladder, kidney a.o.

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Chapter 1 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/chapter-1-post/ Wed, 14 Jun 2017 11:49:18 +0000 http://kids.aspitnord.dk/?p=76

The Nervous System

How come that you can walk, run, work, cook, sing and dance?

 

 

To do that you must be able to move your arms, legs and your head. How does your body do that?

Well, If you decide to lift your left arm, your brain sends a message through an electric current down through your nervous system to your left shoulder to tighten the muscle in your shoulder. Try putting your right hand on your left shoulder as you lift your arm to feel the muscle move.

Moreover, if you want to bend your left arm, your brain sends another electric current to the muscle in your upper arm, which makes it contract and therefore bend, so on and so forth.

You can think of nerves as small electrical wires running throughout your body, connecting your limbs and organs to your brain. muscles however are just soft tissue connected by a network of these slim electric wires, that are able to contract and expand. Now, Take your left hand and feel this for yourself on the upper part of your right arm.

So, as you can see and feel, nerves are incredibly important for us to be able to walk, run, work, cook, sing and dance. But this is just the surface of what your nerves do, because they’re abundant in every part of your body they work in very intricate ways. For instance, if you bite your finger, an impulse will immediately be sent to your brain, and your brain will by means of your nerves make the muscles of your finger remove the finger from your mouth. Try it, but be careful.

Look at all your of nervous system, impressive, isn’t it?

The Muscle System

We have many of the same sort of muscles as the ones of the shoulder, the arm and the fingers, approximate 400 in fact. They are situated in the forehead, in the eyelids, around the mouth, in the stomach, in the thigh and in many other parts of your body. Look for yourself:

Click here to see the muscle system part 1 Click here to see the muscle system part 2

 

Sometimes your muscles will not do, what your head wants them to do. They are tired. The reason is, that they are short of energy. It´s like a fire. As long as there is wood to burn, you can have fire and be able to cook.

When the wood has burnt to ashes, there is no more fire and you will have to fetch some more wood. It´s the same with muscles; when they are tired they need new energy from food and oxygen, but they also should rest for a while. You and your friends can see it for yourselves by making some push-ups on the floor.

FACTS

To be able to walk, run work, cook, sing and dance we need muscles and nerves. And muscles and nerves need energy from food and from oxygen

Our Bloodveins

The muscles and the rest of the body for that matter get energy from the blood. Within the blood there is oxygen and some of the food we have eaten, only it is broken down into very, very tiny parts, so that it can be transported inside the blood veins. Think of that next time you see a drop of blood.

It´s not just the muscles, that need energy from the blood. Every part of the body does. That’s why we have blood veins throughout our body, in our fingers, our legs, our ears, our stomach, our skin etc. etc. To make the blood circulate in the veins we have this incredible pump called the heart. The heart is itself a muscle, that works – without the head having to think about it at all – from the day we lie in our mother´s stomach till the day we die. Try to put the palm of your right hand to your stomach, where you think your heart is situated. Can you feel it pumping? And you don´t even need to ask it to do so.

But how does food and oxygen get into the blood veins?

The Digestive System

Let´s start with the food:

Firstly, we put vegetables or rice or meat into our mouth

After chewing the food, we swallow it and it goes down a thin pipe called the gullet, which is 20-25 cm long. Try to measure 25 cm from your mouth downwards to your stomach.

At the end of the gullet the food lands in the stomach, where it – without us knowing about it – is mixed with acids, that the stomach produces itself. Then the stomach turns the food round and round for four hours, until it´s liquid.

Then the food enters a flexible pipe (called small intestine) through an opening in the stomach. The small intestine is six meters long. Think about how a six meters long intestine can be inside your body.

Four hours later the food has been dissolved into very, very tiny parts by means of insulin and juice from an organ called pancreas, yellowish-green juice from the liver and the small intestine´s own bacteria.

Then the very, very tiny parts of the dissolved food can pass through the wall of the small intestine into the blood veins

Some of the food cannot be dissolved this way. That goes for instance for cherry stones, plum stones, olive stones and grape seed and even pebbles accidently mixed up in a rice dish. Instead of passing into the blood, the rest of the food pass into the large intestine, where it stays for 7-16 hours, until it leaves your body as stools.

If you find this a bit difficult to understand, watch this video:

How lungs work

Now you know how the food gets into your blood. It´s time to find out how the oxygen gets into your blood. That´s not difficult.

Oxygen comes into our lungs through our mouth and nose. Try to breathe through your nose while closing your mouth and then through your mouth holding your nose. The air that we breathe mostly consists of oxygen. We need the oxygen, and we need it quite desperately. Try to see how long time you can close your mouth and hold your nose at the same time. Not for long, I guess. Your body must have new oxygen all the time. From your mouth and nose, the oxygen gets into your lungs.

Inside your lungs the oxygen gets into some very, very fine tiny sort of windpipes, that allows the oxygen into your blood. Look here:

Click here to see the bloodveins

The red veins contain oxygen from inhalation

The blue veins contain carbon dioxide from exhalation (we get back to that later)

If you want to check your understanding of how the oxygen gets into your blood, watch this video:

FACTS

FACTS

Your muscles and the rest of your body gets energy from the blood. The energy gets into your blood when you have eaten food and when you have breathed oxygen.

FACTS

To be able to walk, run, work, cook, sing and dance, we need a lot of muscles, we need nerves throughout our body and we need our blood to circulate in our veins to make sure, that all parts of our body have the energy they need to perform. You already know that a minor part of what we eat pass into the large intestine, until it leaves your body as stools. But when your body uses energy, some more waste will occur. It´s the same as you can observe with a fire; when the wood is burnt, there is no more fire and all there is left is ashes.

Carbon Dioxide

The waste (the ashes) from our body is carbon dioxide and water. The waste gets out of our body by means of the blood streams. “How is that done?” you might think.

Well, do you remember this little fellow?

Click here to see the bloodveins

His red veins contain oxygen from inhalation.

His blue veins contain carbon dioxide for exhalation

When the blood filled with oxygen from the lungs comes back to the lungs from its journey throughout your body it´s filled with carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. We get rid of the carbon dioxide by exhaling from our lungs through our mouth and nose.

Your blood is purified when passing through your liver and your kidneys. From the liver and the kidneys, the waste (water) is directed to the urinary bladder. You empty your bladder when you pee, you can pee 1 to 1½ l a day. You also get rid of water when you sweat and when you exhale steam from your mouth and nose. Try to exhale on a mirror and you can see it.

FACTS

Our lungs clean our blood for carbon dioxide and we exhale the carbon dioxide through our mouth and nose.

Our liver and kidneys purify our blood for water. We get rid of the water by peeing, by sweating and by exhaling steam through our mouth and nose

 

  • Now you know how your body works, when you want to walk, run, work, cook, sing and dance.

It´s time to think about how you can support your body, so that it stays healthy. Go to chapter 2

 

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