Exercise and Physical Fitness: Questions and Answers

What is physical fitness?
Physical fitness means the body is healthy, flexible, strong, and doesn't get tired easily. Fitness affects the entire body - heart, lungs, bones, muscles - each body function works together.

Why is it important to warm up before playing sports or exercise?
Stretching and other exercises designed to warm up the body can help prevent injury. Warm muscles are more flexible. The blood flow stimulated by warm up activities feed the muscles and carries away carbon dioxide and other wastes. Warm up activities help to prepare muscles to be safely worked.

How does smoking affect the body?
Cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and other tobacco products contain hundreds of poisons. Nicotine is a very poisonous substance in tobacco smoke. Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas found in cigarette smoke. Smoking raises blood pressure, reduces the amount of oxygen in blood, causes mucus to build up in the lungs, and can cause death. People who smoke get sick more often and heal slower than non-smokers.