Fun English Lessons

ESL Reading

Many people from all over the world are obsessed with their body weight.  Many of those people wish to lose weight but are utterly clueless when it comes to how to lose it.  They often try fad diets, weight loss pills, over-training, or a combination.  These extreme measures are unhealthy and virtually impossible to maintain.  These people often lose weight quickly at first, only to gain it all back and even more once they return to their normal lifestyle.  Some people even develop illnesses such as anorexia.

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Obsessed – It means to put too much thought into something.  If you are obsessed about something it means you are spending too much time thinking about it and worrying about it too much.  You could say, “He’s obsessed with playing video games”.  Or “She’s obsessed with her looks.”  It’s used in a negative way.  It doesn’t just mean, “pay a lot of attention to”, it means “pays too much attention too”.   

 

Utterly – It means “completely”, “totally” or “100%”.  Some examples are:
She’s utterly beautiful. 
That idea is utterly stupid.
He is utterly unaware of the dangers of smoking.

 

Clueless – It means “having no knowledge about”. 
He is utterly clueless about how to treat woman.
I’m clueless about computers.
My friend is absolutely clueless about how to save money.

 

Fad diets – A fad is something that becomes very popular or fashionable quickly, but is only popular for a brief period of time.
A diet is a plan for what someone can eat.  Sometimes certain diets like, “seafood diets” or “No fat” diets become very popular with people for a while.  Different diets are popular at different times.  The USA often has a lot of fad diets.

 

Over-training – When someone exercises too much.  They make themselves too tired and hurt from over-exercising.  This is unhealthy and people often become sick from it.

 

Extreme measures – Here, a “measure” means an action taken to solve a problem.  Extreme measures mean that the action taken is very serious and strict.  If you get sick one time from eating chicken, and because of that you decide never to eat meat again, that is an extreme measure.

 

Virtually impossible – Here virtually means “almost”.  Virtually is often used with the word impossible.  To say something is impossible it means that there is absolutely 0% chance of something happening.  It can’t happen.  If you say virtually impossible it means that there is almost no chance of it happening, but maybe in some strange case it might happen.   

 

Anorexia – an eating disorder where you don’t want to eat at all.  Some people get this because they want to be really thin and they always think they are too fat.  This is a very serious disorder and some people die from it.

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