From health to disease

Sometimes our health gets affected because of things that happen around us and we suffer from diseases.

Diseases can be classified in different ways. They can be classified based on - What causes them, what they do inside the body, their symptoms and many other things.

Some diseases are caused by organisms which enter our body (infectious diseases), many others due to environment (Asthma due to air pollution or inhaling smoke from stove while cooking food). Some others are caused by our lifestyles (tension ridden lifestyle tend to cause high blood pressure). Some diseases are caused by deficiencies of important nutrients (one such example is anemia). The cause of some diseases are not known – eg, cancer

Here we will talk about diseases that are caused by external agents.

First let’s think, how do these external agents reach us? Do all external agents enter our body through the same route or do they take different routes?

To understand various routes of disease let’s do a small activity.

Activity 3: How do Diseases reach us?
Make a list of diseases that are mentioned in your textbook. Now, think about how these diseases reach us? Use the body outline given below to write the names of the diseases near the body part through which they reach us.

Let’s take ‘cold’ as an example. Through which body part does it reach your body?

We can get cold if someone sneezes or coughs near our nose or mouth. Hence we can say that it reaches us through our nose or mouth.

Similarly think of routes of all the diseases in your list. You can use your textbook for help.

Are there some diseases that you have not been able to mark on the body outline?

Discuss in groups to think how do we get these diseases.