Vitamin Pills: Just a waste of money?

Introduction

Keeping fit and healthy is now a priority for many people around the world. The “keep fit craze” has continued unabated over the years and it is contributed to lowering the levels of obesity in many developed nations. When training and exercising it is important to monitor the minerals and vitamins your body is taking in. Sometimes this can be rather tricky since nutritional information is not available on plates at restaurants, or when eating over at a friend’s house.

What exactly are vitamins? Well, they are organic compounds that are found naturally in all foods and fruits and are essential to maintaining your body’s metabolic functions. Your body does not need a lot, just very small quantities, mostly in the microgram range.

That said, do people need to pay to have all the vitamins they need? Is it worth spending thousands of pounds each year to supplement your diet? This vox pop taken from online sources looks at how other people view this topic.

Teacher’s notes

1. Introduce the topic with a reverse guessing game. Tell the students the following and have them guess:
   1. it is organic
   2. it’s a chemical
   3. it can be artificially produced
   4. you can buy it from your local pharmacy
2. Then ask students their general opinion of vitamins, do they take it? How much does it cost?
3. Use the printed worksheet below in class, ensure every student have one printed opinion in front of them. Group them up and then allow for time for them to share their own opinion, what they think of the printed opinions and which they think is the most valid. Also, encourage students to explain to others what is on their card in stead of allowing others to read it.  This will maximise student learning and gently push them to summarise and reformulate paragraphs.
4. Review all ideas as a class
5. Watch TED Talk video and answer questions.

Vitamin worksheet download

Download the PDF Vox Pop plan: Vitamin Pills Vox Pop ESLTalkingPoints PDF

Vitamin video for discussion

Video gap fill exercise. This exercise is in the style of an IELTS listening test where there are either, one, two, or three words missing in the spaces. The answers are given below.

1. They’re the body’s builders, defenders and ________________workers, helping it to build ______________________, make use of nutrients…
2. If you need convincing about vitamin value, just consider the ____________of olden day sailors…
3. Because blood ______________________is water-based, _________________________ vitamins C and B have their transport cut out for them
4. Because of that, most water-soluble vitamins need to be __________________on a daily basis through the food we eat
5. The body treats these parts like a _________________________, storing the vitamins there and ______________________them out when needed,
6. Finally, from Vitamin K, we score the ability to___________________, since it helps make the proteins that do this job.
7. so there goes the __________________________ yourself with ______________________________is a great idea. In reality, it’s all about getting the balance right,

Additional links and resources

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/

If you are having trouble using this lesson plan, get more ideas on How to teach using online comments and vox pop replies