Health

Registering

Before sixteen, you can only decide about your own health care if doctors think you are capable of understanding what's involved. When you are sixteen, however, you may decide about your own health care. Anything you say to your doctor is private.

To register with a doctor, simply go along to a surgery (you could check out with your friends and family which doctors they use) and ask to be put on the list. If the practice is full, or you can't find a GP, contact your local health authority, who will allocate you to one.

Dentists are listed in the telephone directory. To register, simply go along to your chosen practice. But beware, many dentists nowadays accept only private patients - you may have to search quite hard.

Regular exercise is good for you, and it doesn't have to be exhausting or painful. This is what it can do for you:

• It helps you feel good
• It helps your heart and muscles to work more efficiently
• It helps keep you a healthy weight
• It helps with disorders like asthma
• It tones your muscles and makes you stronger
• It relieves stress and helps you relax
• It can help you to meet new people and make new friends

To get the most benefit from exercise, you should try to do activities that:

When you're young, it's important that you look good. And to look good, so the theory goes, you need to be thin, so you should go on a diet. But the fact of the matter is, diets just don't work. Whilst you might lose some weight for a short time, the odds are you'll just put the weight (and maybe more) back on once you stop dieting.

The important thing is to be positive about food, follow the balance of good health above and, even more importantly, be positive about yourself, both who you are as a person and your body.

But sometimes, people do develop food-related problems. These problems can be very serious, and if you feel that you may have an eating disorder, you should contact your doctor.

This doesn't mean eat as much as possible of the foods you like best -?? you would soon get bored of that. It does mean that whilst there's no harm in the odd bag of chips or chocolate bar, you should take care to eat as varied a diet as possible. Have a think about what you eat because whatever shape or size your body is, you still need to give it what it needs. Which leads us to...

The balance of good health:

No one food is perfect, but a good combination of foods contains everything needed for health and well being. There are five major food groups, and if you can manage to eat food from each group daily, you should be eating a balanced diet.