As more schools open for in-person learning and some organized sports start again, many children are returning to the world after having packed on extra body weight. While data is few on whether there’s been a rise in children’s weight over the pandemic(大流行病), some health professionals have seen worrisome signs. Suzannah Stivison, a nurse in Kensington, Md. , said that some of her patients put on what she calls “the other COVID- 19”— as in, 19 pounds
A loss of daily arrangements, in school and extracurriculars, left kids looking for a sense of control that many have found in eating. One of the ways that people regained a routine and a schedule within their families was most likely around meals. Since last March, adults joined the bread-baking craze and ate junk food as they liked.
Stivison herself admits the bad effect of the pandemic. “I never have Cheetos in my house. But all of a sudden, they appeared, ”she said. “And this has been a phenomenon that I have seen in lots of houses. Eating became something we could control. And it’s also something we use for comfort.”
Children tend to gain weight during periods like summer vacation, when fewer are getting regular exercise through organized sports and physical education. But there are supportive ways parents can help get their kids back to a healthier lifestyle. It’s less about talking and more about setting an example. Talking about risk factors such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease doesn’t really work, especially with younger kids. Kids know they’re heavier than their peers. They know they get out of breath.
However, parents can model good habits like exercising an hour a day or keeping the house stored with healthier foods. “It really comes down to the modeling and the opportunity we can control what food comes into the house, ” Stivison said. “And so guess what? I’ve stopped buying Cheetos. ”
1. What does the phrase “the other COVID- 19”in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Patients’ dress size. | B．A serious disease. |
| C．Children’s weight gain. | D．An effective treatment. |
| A．They ate unhealthy food. | B．They helped prepare meals. |
| C．They arranged schoolwork. | D．They learned bread-baking. |
| A．To prove the benefit of eating. | B．To recommend a popular food. |
| C．To share a way to find comfort. | D．To show a change in eating habit. |
| A．Set an example of positive living. | B．Ask the kids to exercise regularly. |
| C．Talk about the risks of extra weight. | D．Control the amount of food at home. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】
Many animals recognize their food because they see it. So do humans. When you see an apple or a piece of chocolate you know that you can eat it. You can also use other senses when you choose your food. You may like it because it smells good or because it tastes good. You may dislike some types of food because they do not look, smell or taste very nice. Different animals use different senses to find and choose their food. A few animals depend on only one of their senses, while most animals use more than one sense.
Although there are many different types of food, some animals spend their lives eating only one type. The giant panda (大熊猫) eats only one particular type of bamboo (竹子). Other animals eat only one type of food even when given the choice. A kind of white butterfly (蝴蝶) will stay on the leaves of a cabbage, even though there are plenty of other vegetables in the garden. However, most animals have a more varied diet (多样化饮食). The bear eats fruits and fish. The fox eats small animals, birds and fruits. The diet of these animals will be different depending on the season.
Humans have a very varied diet. We often eat food because we like it and not because it is good for us. In countries such as France and Britain, people eat food with too much sugar. This makes them overweight, which is bad for their health. Eating too much red meat and animal products, such as butter, can also be bad for the health. Choosing the right food, therefore, has become an area of study in modern life.
1. We can infer from the text that humans and animals ________.| A．depend on one sense in choosing food |
| B．are not satisfied with their food |
| C．choose food in similar ways |
| D．eat entirely different food |
| A．the season changes |
| B．the food color changes |
| C．they move to different places |
| D．they are attracted by different smells |
| A．The white butterfly. | B．The small bird. |
| C．The bear. | D．The fox. |
| A．food is chosen for a good reason |
| B．French and British food is good |
| C．some people have few choices of food |
| D．some people care little about healthy diet |
【推荐2】It happens from time to time that after a whole morning of studying, you are tired in the afternoon. It’s then that you might want to eat something sweet, perhaps a cake or a chocolate bar to lift your mood. After all, it’s popularly believed that a “sugar rush” gives us energy.
But a study published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews in April suggests that sugar can make us feel worse rather than boost our moods.
The German and UK researchers studied the effect of sugar on various aspects of mood, including anger, alertness (警惕性), depression and tiredness.
They found that people who have too much sugar become more tired and less alert within an hour, and that these feelings become more intense (强烈的) over time.
According to the researchers, when people take in sugar, their blood sugar levels rise rapidly, leading to a burst of energy and a short “feel good” period. However, as they begin to digest (消耗) the sugar, their blood sugar levels decrease quickly, leading to a bad feeling.
To remain on a “high”, people are likely to eat more and more sugar until they become addicted to it. As with caffeine, this prevents the body from relaxing, leaving people feeling tired and less alert.
But the study findings needn’t make us think we must give up sweet food altogether. According to the World Health Organization, it is healthy to have the sugars found naturally in fruit, vegetables and milk, so long as these make up less than 5 percent of daily total energy intake.
So the next time you feel tired and can’t concentrate, perhaps you should think twice before you bite into a chocolate bar. Maybe a spot of exercise at midday would be a better idea!
1. What does the underlined word “boost” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．improve | B．harm | C．control | D．change |
| A．They felt relaxed. | B．They felt more tired. |
| C．They were more alert. | D．They felt energetic. |
| A．Our mood is connected to our blood sugar levels. |
| B．Taking in more sugar benefits mental health. |
| C．Getting caffeine is another way to relax. |
| D．Sugar and caffeine have the same effects. |
| A．Give up sweet food. | B．Have a bar of chocolate. |
| C．Do some exercise at midnight. | D．Eat proper foods with natural sugars. |
【推荐3】Living the light life
Many of us like to dine ( 吃 饭 ) out and treat ourselves to delicious food. We are used to choosing hearty, fat-filled dishes and sugar-charged desserts, which are not easily cooked at home.
The recent rise of light meals, however, gives diners a smarter choice. According to Economic Daily, low-calorie, low-fat and high-fiber ( 高纤维的) meals have become popular in China's restaurants and online delivery platforms.
The country saw a rapid expansion of restaurants specializing in light meals, from just 600 in 2017 to more than 3,500 in 2018. According to a report released by Meituan, a major online food delivery platform, the number of light meals ordered online also rose 75 percent from the previous year.
Having a light meal, however, doesn't mean eating only vegetables. Different from the meat-free lifestyle, a typical light dish avoids oily, salty and spicy food. Instead, it contains things like boiled meat, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Healthy nutrients (营养成分) are the theme of the light meal.
These dishes are useful for keeping healthy and controlling your weight. That's probably why so many people, especially millennials (千禧一代), are into them. Diners see it as “a great way to avoid bloating (变胖),” wrote the Telegraph.
“After eating several light meals, I felt my appetite has shrunk (缩小). I now prefer light flavors,” Zou Jing, a college teacher in Wuhan, told China Daily. She shared a picture of her lunch: a mixture of beef, eggs, corn, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.
These changes in eating behavior are connected to deeper changes in how people think about food, says Walter Willett, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.Chan School of Public Health, US. “Diet quality, not quantity, is important for both weight control and long-term well-being,” Willett told The New York Times.
So the next time you have a party with friends, try a light meal. It will satisfy not only your stomachs but maybe also your hearts.
1. What are light meals?| A．Low-calorie and high-fiber meals. | B．Meat-free dishes. |
| C．Sugar-charged desserts. | D．Fat-filled dishes. |
| A．Giving descriptions. | B．Giving examples. |
| C．Listing numbers. | D．Showing other people's opinions. |
| A．They can help people control their weight. | B．They are simple and convenient. |
| C．They are cheaper than other meals. | D．They are usually colorful. |
| A．Light meals will stay popular for a while. |
| B．There is a change in attitude toward healthy eating. |
| C．One's eating habit shows their personality. |
| D．It's important to eat the right amount of good food. |
【推荐1】In an era when many parents make efforts to ensure that boys and girls have equal opportunities, a recent study found that boys are paid twice as much allowance as girls for doing weekly chores.
An analysis of 10, 000 families across the US showed that boys earned an average of $13. 80 each week compared with $6. 71 earned by girls, according to BusyKid, a web platform that allows kids to receive, spend, or invest their allowance. “I think this is a wake-up call for parents to be cognizant (认识到) of what they are paying, to make sure they are being as fair as possible,” said Gregg Murset, CEO of BusyKid,
According to the analysis, boys averaged more allowance than girls because they were more often assigned chores considered more physically difficult, including cutting the grass. Girls, meanwhile, were more often paid for jobs such as loading the dishwasher. Boys also earned more money because they were paid for things girls were not paid for at all, including showering and brushing their teeth.
In Illinois, Vaishali Patel tries hard to teach her two children that gender should’t determine what chores they are assigned or what activities they choose. The parents don’t pay their children an allowance, and instead expect them to help with all jobs around the house. But Patel said the children still pick up on old-fashioned gender stereotypes (刻板印象) from elsewhere, like when they tell their son to try dance classes in addition to the sports he plays. “He’s like, ‘No way am I doing that’,” said Patel. “Some of that is really hard to influence.”
The stereotype can also be seen at Future Investor Clubs of America, a summer camp offered in many US cities to teach financial responsibility and wealth strategies to teens. In the past 21 years, it has consistently enrolled mostly boys, despite efforts by camp management to recruit girls.
Barbara Risman, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that while Americans have come a long way in terms of offering more equal opportunities for men and women, changing mindsets (心态) permanently takes even more time.
The best way to counter the patterns, Risman added, is to think about and discuss the way we approach gender roles as often as possible. “You can’t change behavior you have never noticed,” she said.
1. Why do boys receive more allowance than girls for doing weekly chores?| A．They are often assigned more chores than girls. |
| B．They are often given more difficult work. |
| C．They pay girls to do things for them. |
| D．They are willing to take on more chores. |
| A．how gender stereotypes influence what people do |
| B．the efforts Americans have made for gender equality |
| C．it’s common for company to get girls admitted |
| D．the achievements Americans have made in changing stereotypes |
| A．Give children more equal opportunities. |
| B．Discuss the gender gap with children more. |
| C．Assign children similar chores. |
| D．Give the problem more attention. |
| A．There is no gender difference between kids. |
| B．Her son hasn’t been influenced by gender stereotypes at all. |
| C．To change a gender stereotype takes a long time and hard work. |
| D．It’s a good choice to pay children for doing chores. |
【推荐2】The average American child spends three to five hours a day watching TV. In 1961, the average child began to watch television at age three; however, today it is nine months. Yet, most parents think that television has bad influence on their children. For example, in the early 1970s, my parents believed that my bad eyesight was the result of sitting too close to the screen, and they therefore made my stay at least six feet from it. Today, most people have no such worry, but many new ridiculous (荒谬的) sayings have appeared:
TV makes kids stupid. The opposite is true. Many children watch more educational programs when they are pre-schoolers. When they grow up, they can read more books and have much better ideas to solve difficult problems than other children.
TV makes kids violent. The real story is not so simple. Hundreds of studies show that watching violence on TV makes children more aggressive (好斗的). But a study of over 5,000 children also finds that some positive programs make children kinder. The problem is that kids are increasingly watching shows with violence instead of those suitable for their age.
Sitting around watching TV makes kids overweight. An experiment finds that when children watch less television, they do lose extra weight; however, reducing their television time does not make them more active. The real problem lies in snacking (吃零食), a widespread habit for kids.
TV helps kids get to sleep. The opposite is true. The more television children watch, the more likely they are to have irregular sleep and nap(小睡) patterns. Allowing kids to watch television is part of the problem, not the solution.
1. Which one is the advantage of educational TV programs?| A．They will improve children’s ability to get along with others. |
| B．They will make children solve difficult problems better than others. |
| C．They are likely to make children more aggressive. |
| D．They will make sure of children’s success in the future. |
| A．Watching TV makes children lazy and inactive. |
| B．Watching TV makes children sleepy. |
| C．Watching TV doesn’t burn up as much fat as doing sports. |
| D．Children like to snack while watching TV. |
| A．It will make children form a bad habit of sleeping. |
| B．Children’s sleep time will be greatly reduced. |
| C．Children are likely to sleep deeper after watching TV. |
| D．It will make children sleep easier. |
| A．To increase people’s knowledge of watching TV. |
| B．To warn parents of the disadvantages of watching TV. |
| C．To explain the bad influences that watching TV has on children. |
| D．To correct parents’ wrong ideas of television’s effect on children. |
【推荐3】Across the gardens of Britain, in cities and suburbs, people are building sheds (工棚). “We have never seen such an increase in orders,” says Paul Deary of the Garden Shed Company, whose family has been in the business for 35 years. “People have gone shed crazy.” The Timber Trade Federation reports that in October, the last month for which statistics are available, imports of softwood were 34% higher than a year earlier. With stocks (存货) running low, what wood is available is quickly sold out.
A garden shed used to be mostly a place to store tools, or a place to discuss how to grow flowers, and enjoy tea and snacks while the rain falls outside, according to Michael Rand, an expert gardener. But the creative brainworker has long put it to more productive use. Roald Dahl and Dylan Thomas wrote in sheds. George Bernard Shaw had one in his Hertfordshire garden that faced the sun.
The structures now being built are also often intended for work, although they are grander than the ones those pioneer shed-writers used. Green Retreats, which mostly builds garden offices but also garden gyms and the like, says that overall sales grew by 113% between 2019 and 2020. Larger, prettier structures with things like white walls are especially popular.
This has an important effect on cities. Urban scholars like Richard Florida and Edward Glaeser are busy trying to work out whether the rise in home-working that has occurred during COVID-19 will continue when the virus ebbs. If it does, many service jobs in cities, from waiters to taxi drivers, will disappear. Public-transport systems will struggle. The value of city-centre property will drop.
The shed craze makes that outcome more likely. A white-collar worker who has tried to work from the kitchen table for the past nine months might be keen (渴望的) to return to the office. A worker who has a beautiful garden shed with Wi-Fi will be less so. Joel Bird, who builds personalized sheds, is certain that his customers foresee a long-term change in their working habits. “They don’t consider it to be temporary,” he says. “They’re spending too much money.”
1. Why did Britain buy more softwood from other countries?| A．Demands for sheds were on the rise. |
| B．Softwood was cheaper this year. |
| C．Softwood suppliers were fewer than before. |
| D．Britons stocked up like crazy due to COVID-19. |
| A．Famous shed-writers. |
| B．Improvements on shed-building. |
| C．Various functions of sheds. |
| D．The development of shed-offices. |
| A．Survives. | B．Declines. | C．Spreads. | D．Starts. |
| A．Enthusiastic. | B．Uncaring. | C．Optimistic. | D．Pessimistic. |
【推荐1】Experts often tell students to center their efforts on a narrow field to get a job after school. But recent research into Nobel Prize winners suggests that wider interests are important.
One of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was 68-year-old Danish scientist Meldal. When describing his career, Meldal said he started as an engineer but changed to chemistry because he wanted to understand the world.
In a discussion with the Nobel Prize organization, he talked about his co-winner, Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford University. He said, “She has such broad knowledge of both chemistry and biology and she knows how to use her knowledge in a clever way.”
Meldal’s experience and the way he sees things may come as a surprise to students. They might believe they have to center their work and school lives in one field to be successful. But a study from professors shows that is not always the case. They said that a large number of Nobel Prize winners can be described as “polymaths”, people who have many different interests in both their work and personal lives. This permits scientists to look for creative ways to solve problems. In fact, one important part of science is not discovering answers, but recognizing problems that need to be solved.
The researchers say that Nobel winners are nine times more likely to have experience in working with wood, metal or in the arts than most scientists. They pointed to a 2012 report about students who study two majors in college. Double majors are often more creative and more interested in starting their own businesses. Other researchers have found that having an outside activity like playing chess, performing music or creating art can help predict future success in a job.
1. What do experts often advise their students to do?| A．Devote their time and effort to their related field. |
| B．Develop a wide interest besides their majors. |
| C．Pay attention to hot topics in their research field. |
| D．Keep a good balance between their work and life. |
| A．A person ready to do research and learn art. |
| B．A person with creative ways to solve problems. |
| C．A person with college degrees in different majors, |
| D．A person with different interests in their work and personal lives. |
| A．They like to create material things. |
| B．They can recognize problems fast. |
| C．They can work more creatively. |
| D．They’re successful businessmen. |
| A．Double Majors Are Business Bosses |
| B．Wide Interests Count for Nobel Prize Winners |
| C．Studying a Major Isn’t Enough to Win a Prize |
| D．Creative Thinkers Are Preferred for Getting Prizes |
【推荐2】A new study shows that fat people in the United States suffer direct economic and social effects because of their size. The findings are from an 8-year study of about 100,000 people. The people studied were between the ages of 16 and 24 when the research began.
The researchers who carried out the study say they consider the people fat if they are in the top of 5% of the measurement. In this measurement, weight is connected with height. For example, fat women in the study were about 160 centimetres tall and weighed about 90 kilograms. Fat men in the study were about 175 centimetres tall and weighed 100 kilograms. The researchers say that more than 1, 000,000 Americans are that big. The researchers found that fat young women were more likely to lose social and economic power even if they were from wealthy families. The fat women were also 20% less likely to get married and they earned an average of about S 6,700 a year less than other women. The study showed less severe effect on fat men. They earned an average of about $ 3,000 a year less than other men. Fat men were also 11% less likely to get married.
1. From this passage we know fat people in America were ______.| A．admired | B．respected | C．unhealthy | D．unpopular |
| A．The reason why fat people suffered. |
| B．The cause that caused people to be fat. |
| C．The standard of fat people. |
| D．The number of fat people. |
| A．economic | B．social | C．serious | D．favorable |
| A．brain, human rights and payment |
| B．income, marriage and human rights |
| C．brain, education and marriage |
| D．marriage, getting jobs and income |
【推荐3】Picture this: you’re having trouble sleeping or your digestive system is playing up, so you go to your doctor expecting some pills. But, instead, you walk away with a ticket to the ballet or instructions to join a choir(唱诗班).
This is social prescribing(处方), and it’s taking off in a big way with hundreds of practices in England regularly referring their patients to take part in cultural activities, with a focus on prevention, early intervention, and management of long-term illness.
“Social prescribing can enable people to manage existing health problems, to connect and to grow in confidence,” says Pandya. As well as this, the arts can lower daily stress through even very short amounts of arts engagement each day such as listening to music. Even simply reading a book has numerous positive benefits. It can reduce stress, promote self-reflection, strengthen social skills, and increase knowledge, which can have an impact on educational and career success.
But why are cultural experiences so effective at improving your well-being? Art in any form, whether creating or observing, reduces the stress hormone(荷尔蒙). It also releases the feelgood hormones, which help you combat stress and pain. In a series of pioneering experiments, professors at UCL examined volunteers’ brains as they looked at 28 images. They found that the same part of the brain that gets excited when you fall in love with someone is stimulated when you look at works of art. Viewing art also causes an increase in dopamine(多巴胺), leading to feelings of intense pleasure.
Debs had been struggling with her mental health and was referred to art therapy courses. “Social prescribing addressed my wellness rather than my illness. The focus was on what I could do well, not what all the problems were. It allowed me time to heal myself. It totally transformed my life.”
1. What’s the function of the 1st paragraph?| A．To introduce a choir. | B．To show a picture. | C．To introduce the topic. | D．To attract readers’ attention. |
| A．doing an experiment. | B．listening to music. | C．joining a choir. | D．reading a poem. |
| A．The reason why art reduces the stress hormone. |
| B．The finding of a series of pioneering experiments. |
| C．The finding that the same part of the brain is stimulated. |
| D．The reason why art improves one’s health and happiness. |
| A．Grateful. | B．Concerned. | C．Discontent. | D．Neutral. |
