[Compo – Expository] What are some ways we can improve our health?

From: Admiralty Sec 3 2019 MYE [1128 & 1184/01]

Question type: Discursive/Expository

This requires a good knowledge of health tips, as well as trends. Read up!

For expository essays that require you to expand on a given topic, we provide three different ways that people can do to improve their health – by watching their diet, getting exercise, and staying away from illicit substances.

Each paragraph follows the PEEL format: Point, Explain, Example, Link back.

When providing solutions, make sure they address the issue that you have raised in the first place. Weaker explanations and linkages merely state that “a solution should be adopted for the betterment of all”. Why will it be better? What advantage does home-cooked food have that food cooked outside does not?

FYI: “betterment” roughly means “improvement” or “benefit”.

Health. A simple-sounding concept, yet simultaneously daunting. This is no thanks to the deluge of convoluted and often contradictory rhetoric that we are assailed with. From friends, family, brands, and social media influencers, everyone has something different to say – and all of them say they are right. But are we overcomplicating things so much that we have lost sight of the core tenets of improving our health? If so, how can we turn things around?

Perhaps the most important aspect is our personal diet. While many associate heart disease and diabetes with a lifestyle of excess and indulgence, this is an oversimplified and often stereotypical generalisation. Singaporeans eat out for a wide variety of reasons, be it from a lack of time for cooking, or simply because they prefer the experience of eating out. Yet, the food available outside often features excessive carbohydrates and sodium, while lacking in vitamins and protein. Preparing our own food gives us numerous and valuable opportunities to “control” what we consume, therefore ensuring a proper, balanced diet that enriches us. It also provides a welcome change of pace, allowing us to explore our interests and varied flavours.

The next approach to improving health comes from getting ample physical activity. Many of us lead sedentary lifestyles, citing that we are bogged down by school, or work – or lacking funds for a gym membership. This leaves us nowhere near the recommended duration of daily physical activity. However, there are numerous avenues as well as accessible opportunities to incorporate physical activity, even on a busy day. This could include taking the stairs instead of the lift, or of doing body weight exercises at a nearby park. Even if done for just twenty to thirty minutes a day, these activities will add up over time, ensuring an all-rounded level of fitness that benefits our health.

The last aspect is straightforward — or at least, it should be. Avoiding smoking or drugs seems like common sense. Yet, reality has a way of proving that “common sense” is perhaps in short supply. An unhealthy obsession with “optimising and maximising” one’s physical appearance has given rise to trends like “looksmaxxing”. What follows is the clinically dubious usage of substances like weight loss pills, or steroids to force muscle growth. These substances often alter body chemistry drastically, causing severe side effects that can leave permanent, lasting damage to the body. This is the very antithesis of improving our health.

The truth about improving our health is that there is simply no magic pill out there, even if someone claims otherwise. Yet, it is also simple to improve our health. All it takes is a little more effort to vary our physical routines, and to adjust our diets in manageable ways. Ultimately, these little efforts are what will stave off future health risks. Our greatest obstacle in the pursuit may very well be our innate desire for shortcuts, and the pitfalls that come with it.

(490 words)

If your essay will require you to use non-standard English like the abovementioned term, use quotation marks to introduce the term. If you have not already done so, provide a brief explanation about the term as well.

For the parents and/or people with healthier internet surfing habits: Looksmaxxing is a term for an online subculture fixated on improving (“maximising”) one’s physical appearance and looks, especially for men. This term often specifically refers to the extreme obsession and consequent methods used, including substance use.

Word/Phrase	Meaning + Explanation
Deluge	A very large amount of something (which is often unpleasant and difficult to deal with)
Convoluted	Extremely complicated and difficult to understand
Contradictory	Describing two things that do not match; such that one of them is likely inaccurate
Rhetoric	Speech/writing meant to influence people
Excess	An amount more than what is seen as acceptable.
Indulgence	To reconsider how someone views a certain topic (often a difficult or unpleasant topic)
Stereotypical	Having the qualities/traits that someone expects of a certain person or thing. However, this way of judgement may be inaccurate.
Sedentary	Marked by a lack of physical activity
Citing	“stating”; saying / declaring something
Bogged down	Extremely busy with
Incorporate	To include something new in a greater thing that already exists
(in) short supply	A lack of; not enough
Clinically	Relating to medical science/examination of patients   Note: “Medically” is very similar in meaning, but it refers specifically to the treatment of illness and injury. Health supplementation is not for such a purpose; we use “clinically” in this situation.
Dubious	Questionable; suspicious
Antithesis	The complete opposite [of something]
Magic pill	A simple yet extremely effective solution for a problem
Stave off [something/someone]	To prevent/delay something bad from happening OR to keep an unwanted person away
Innate	“within us”
pitfalls	A likely mistake or problem in a situation.