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Hello, welcome members of Effortless English. This is the vocabulary audio for the Lifestyle Diseases podcast.

This article, by the way, is from Shurry Ivavaki. She was one of our members from Hiroshima, Japan. She wrote the original essay. I edited it so that it would be standard American English, of course.

All right, let’s get started with some of the more difficult vocabulary from this article.

In the first paragraph, I use the phrase contributing factor, or she uses the phrase. But major contributing factor to life style related diseases.

Contributing factor is something that effects something or something that causes it. So, that’s…

But contributing gives the idea that it’s not the total cause. It’s one of the causes. It might be a major cause, but there might be other things that also cause this problem. So that’s the contributing factor.

And a life style related disease, a life style disease is a disease that comes from how you live your life.

Life style means, you know, how you eat, how you live, how you act, your actions, your food, how you sleep, your exercise habits, all your daily habits of living. That’s your life style.

So some disease such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, they are caused by or contributed to, by the way you live. If you’re…

Mostly, by the way you eat. Diabetes is a type of blood disease. It’s a blood sugar disease. Your body cannot control your blood sugar.

We use the word obesity in this article. Obesity means very, very fat. OK, so there’s fat and then there’s obesity. Obesity means extremely fat, very fat, dangerously fat.

All right, we see the word surplus in this article in that same paragraph. Surplus means extra. So you have this much as you need and then you get more.

In this case, surplus weight is bad right? You don’t want too much weight. Surplus money is good and you get more that you actually need, that’s great if it’s money, not so good if it’s fat.

All right, I think you guys all know the word calorie, calorie is the amount of energy from what you eat, from the food.

It has that an another scientific meaning, but for everyday meaning, it’s generally amount of energy you get from the food. And if you get too much energy from your food, too many calories, of course you’re going to get fat.

All right, we use the word, you see the word overweight in this article. So there’s overweight and there’s obesity. What’s the difference?

Well, overweight really means you’re fat, but maybe a little fat. It’s kind of a polite word in English to say fat, you’re not…

In English, especially in America, you do not tell someone directly, oh, you’re fat.

But you might say wow you know, you’re overweight, you’re a little overweight. You should lose weight. So, it’s kind of a polite way to say fat.

But obesity is very, very, very fat, so it’s more than just overweight. Overweight is probably most Americans, but obesity is you know is a big difficult problem and it’s extremely fat.

All right, we talk about the word servings in this that, on the TV show, the Japanese people ate 3 servings of curry rice.

A serving is kind of the amount you eat at one time. So if you go to a restaurant first they bring an appetizer, okay? That’s a serving. Whatever is on that plate we called that a serving.

And then they’ll bring your main dish, that’s another serving. And maybe, you know, they keep bringing dishes. Each one of those, we call that a serving.

Or if you go to a buffet, right? All you can eat, you take your plate, you put food on it, you bring back to the table, you eat it, then you go back to the buffet again and you get more. That’s your second serving.

All right, excess in the next paragraph, we use the word excess. Excess also has this idea of surplus, of more than you need, of too much or extra. So excess weight means extra weight.

All right, you see the word, down towards the bottom of the learning guide here of page one, meal portion size, okay?

A portion, it’s a similar idea to serving, but really portion means the amount of food on your plate. So, maybe both of us are eating spaghetti, but I only have one cup of spaghetti, right?

I have just a little bit spaghetti on my food, on my plate, and another person has a really big size of spaghetti, a lot of spaghetti.

Their portion is bigger than mine. They have a bigger portion of spaghetti. So, it’s the size, it’s the amount of food on your plate.

All right, Shurry mentions that unless you have unbelievably strong will, you can’t watch TV and stay thin.

The unbelievably means, amazingly, incredibly, very, very, very. And will, will is your mental strength, the strength of your mind.

So, if that idea that if your mind is very strong, then you can look at a piece of chocolate cake and say: no, I will not eat it. I want it, but I won’t eat it, right? Your mind is strong.

If you have a weak will, however, if you see the chocolate cake and say: oh, I must eat it. And you eat it. You know it’s bad but you do it anyway. Your will, your mental power is weak.

All right, down toward the bottom of page one. I use the verb to shift. We have to find a way to shift our mental focus.

Shift has the, has two kinds of meanings. One is to change. Sometimes, it means a small change or a sudden change, a quick change. So shift is to change.

It also can mean to move, move your body or move something, usually side to side, so side ways movement. It’s another meaning of shift. In this case, it means change.

And then, mental focus, mental focus is what you focus your mind on, what you concentrate on, what you think about most of the time.

An in that same sentence, you hear the word foci, f-o-c-i. Foci is the plural of focus, so foci means more than one focus.

So we don’t say focuses, okay? This is irregular. We do not say focuses. We say foci, more than one focus.

All right, moving on to the second page of the learning guide. In the beginning, you see the phrase root causes.

Root causes means the deep cause, the original cause, the real cause of something, right? Deep, deep down, what is really causing the problem.

The next paragraph, we hear the word anxious. Anxious means nervous.

And then we also here, we see the word, the phrase rather, an outlet for. An outlet for your feelings.

An outlet for your feelings. It means an action that helps you get rid of your feelings, or get your feelings out.

So I feel nervous then I eat something and I feel better, I feel more relaxed. So eating is an outlet for my nervousness, right? It helps me get the nervousness out of my mind.

All right, in that same paragraph you see the phrase, the verb rather, to distract, to distract.

To distract means to suddenly change your mind and it usually means on purpose. You’re trying to change your mind, or you’re trying to change what you’re thinking about.

For example, I’m reading a book and my friend comes over and she interrupts me, right? So, I can’t read the book anymore. So I can say my friend is distracting me.

I can’t focus on the book anymore. I have to turn and look at my friend. It suddenly changes my thoughts, suddenly changes my focus. That’s distract.

Inappropriate, I think we’ve had this word before. Inappropriate means wrong for the situation. It’s incorrect. It’s not good for the situation.

All right, dealing with, we had the phrase dealing with. If you deal with something, it means you survive it, you cope with it, you somehow use this situation and you are successful or at least you don’t fail.

So dealing with something means it’s a difficult situation and somehow you continue to keep going.

And to handle… In the next paragraph, we see the verb to handle and that has basically the same meaning. If you handle the situation, it means it’s a difficult situation, but you don’t fail, you keep going. Somehow you succeed or at least you avoid failing.

All right, in that same next paragraph we see, we hear the word achievement. Shurry says, we can enjoy the achievement of passing a difficult exam. Achievement means success. It means something good that you do.

And I think success is a very good, a good synonym, a good definition for achievement.

And the next sentence, we see, she says we can enjoy the exertion of sports. Exertion means effort. It means difficult effort usually.

It means you trying very hard. You can imagine you’re sweating. You’re putting a lot of effort, a lot of energy, trying to do something. In this case, it’s physical exertion. It means you’re actually using your body and that’s very difficult.

You can also have mental exertion. It means you’re using a lot of mental effort. You’re trying very hard to solve a mental problem.

The next sentence, you hear the word enumerate. So it says we can enumerate many more positive pursuits.

To enumerate is to make a list, right? And usually it means to say a list. So, if we can enumerate many positive actions, it means we can make a long list.

We could exercise, that’s number one. Number two, meditate. Number three, have good friendships. Number four, eat healthy food.

I am enumerating healthy actions, right? I’m listing them one by one.

And a pursuit of course is something that you do. It’s an action. It has the idea maybe even of a hobby sometimes, something you like to do often. That’s a pursuit.

And finally in the last paragraph of the article, we see the verb to cultivate. To cultivate is to take care of something and help it grow.

So if you have a plant, we use it in farming, you cultivate plants. It means you take care of them, you feed them, you give them water and so they will grow bigger and bigger.

You can also cultivate a healthy body. That means you take care of your body, you help your body grow strong.

All right, well that’s it. That’s all of the vocabulary podcast for the Lifestyle Diseases article.

If this went too fast, if it was a little difficult, no problem, just relax, listen to it again. You can listen to it you know three times, five times, fifty times, it doesn’t matter. Whatever is good for you.

So listen to it again and again. This will help you remember the vocabulary. When you’re bored with the vocabulary audio, go to the next podcast, the next audio and listen to the mini-story.

OK, I’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.