1. The answer is b. Primary prevention refers to efforts to prevent disease and injury in healthy people. Examples include immunizations, use of seat belts, and breast self-examinations. Health promotion is directed at increasing one’s well-being, in part through healthy lifestyle choices, such as low-fat diet, regular exercise, and stress management.

2. The answer is b. A weight gain of 10 to 15 pounds between ages 18 and 30 is largely due to the maturing of muscles, bones, and internal organs and an increase in fatty tissue. Overindulgence in food and alcohol—and not a decline in the basal metabolic rate—is the major reason for obesity during this period.

3. The answer is d. Piaget’s analysis of cognitive development has shed light on cognition at all ages. In early adulthood, for example, the characteristics of formal operational thinking help to explain the thought processes employed during these years.

4. The answer is d. Faced with more complex problems, young adults tend to apply their knowledge and cognitive abilities more than adolescents do.

5. The answer is a. So many “firsts” occur during these years (marriage, children, jobs) that this label is a natural.

6. The answer is c. Attempting to devise a technique that would encompass the varied happenings of the life span, Levinson turned to phases that he could identify because of the pattern or structure that characterized the various ages.

7. The answer is c. Stochastic theories propose that aging events are random, cumulative, and microscopic. For example, random exposure to radiation produces mutations in DNA, causing cells to malfunction. The slow accumulation of damage to cell membranes by free radicals (the by-products of oxygen metabolism) is another stochastic theory. The connective tissue theory proposes that chemical reactions bind molecular structures that work best when kept separate, such as proteins, nucleic acid, and collagen. Nonstochastic theories, by contrast, propose that aging is genetically programmed into the lives of cells. For example, a genetic timetable shuts down the ovaries, causing menopause.

8. The answer is a. Smoking, hypertension (blood pressure > 160/90 mm Hg), and Type 1 diabetes are the three major risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). High cholesterol, obesity, stress, and overuse of alcohol are secondary risk factors. Men and women are at equal risk for CVD. However, men develop the disease almost 10 years earlier than women, and the manifestation of CVD in men and women is different.