1 . Do you like to eat out and treat yourself to delicious food? Many people are used to choosing hearty (丰盛的), fat-filled dishes and high-sugar desserts, which are not easily cooked at home, though they may be unhealthy.

According to Economic Daily, low-fat and high-fiber meals have become popular in China’s restaurants and online delivery platforms. The recent rise of light meals gives diners a smarter choice. Restaurants serving light meals have increased from just 600 in 2017 to more than 3, 500 in 2018. According to a report by Meituan, a major online food platform, the number of light meals ordered online also rose 75 percent from last year.

Having a light meal, however, doesn’t mean eating only vegetables. Different from the meat-free lifestyle, a light meal 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 getting fat”.

Zou Jing, a college teacher in Wuhan, shared a picture of her lunch: a mixture of beef, eggs, corn, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. She told China Daily, “After eating several light meals, I felt my appetite (胃口) has shrunk. I now prefer light meals.”

These changes in eating behavior are connected to deeper changes in how people think about food. People are more interested in diet quality, not numbers, which is important for both weight control and health. So the next time you have a party with friends, try a light meal. It will satisfy not only your stomachs, but maybe your hearts.

3 . So much of a healthy life is about forming good habits. For people in many European countries, healthy food, regular exercise and taking time to relax are part of their daily routines. Here are the top three healthiest countries in Bloomingberg’s list this year.

Breakfast is very important to everybody. What do you have for breakfast every morning? For most people in the United States, cereal (燕麦) is very popular. They choose it as breakfast for a long time. But this is changing. A study shows that sales (销售量) of cold and hot cereals in the US were $10 million in 2016. That was $2 million less than the number in 2009.

People are thinking more carefully about what they eat in the morning. And cereal is known for being less nutritious (有营养的) and too high in calories (卡路里). “More and more people are trying to get food that matches the definition (定义) of real food,” says Kendall Powell, manager of the General Mills food company. So, what is real food? Real food is that when you see it, you can see clearly what it is made of. Many people choose from a lot of healthy breakfast food instead of cereal these days. They go for fresh fruit, eggs, yogurt and sandwiches.   

Some people think that eating cereal at a table takes up too much time. They want to take their breakfast with them out of the door. As a study by www.Food-Management.com shows, snacking is the new way of eating breakfast in US schools. And don’t forget the best thing about eating a sandwich: You don’t need to wash a dish!

5 . Nowadays, more and more people realize the importance of having a healthy eating habit. As we know, the daily food we eat affects us in different ways. Sometimes, people are not clear about what kind of food is healthy or not. The USDA has prepared a food guide (指南) to help people learn about which kind of food is the healthiest to eat. The food guide describes six main food groups: meat (like fish and chicken), dairy (like milk and cheese), grains (like bread and rice), fruit, and vegetables. The last group is fats and sweets. Though this guide was from the US government, it is also very useful for people in other countries.

The result of the study shows that too much animal fat does harm to our health. For example, in the USA, people eat a lot of meat and only a small amount of grains, fruit and vegetables. As a result, they have a high rate (率) of cancer (癌症) and heart disease. Japanese people eat large amounts of grains and very little meat. The Japanese live longer than anyone else in the world. However, when Japanese people move to the US, the rate of heart disease and cancer rises as their eating habit changes. And as hamburgers and other high-fat foods become popular in Japan, the rate of heart disease and cancer is rising there as well. People are also eating more meat and dairy food in other countries, in which the disease rate is rising along with the change of the way people eat. Doctors suggest people eat more grains, fruit and vegetables and less meat and dairy food. It is important for children to eat healthily as well as their parents. When parents have poor eating habits, their children usually do, too. After all, children eat the same way as their parents. When parents eat healthy food, the children will learn to enjoy it, too. Then they will develop good eating habits easily.

6 . It’s hard to turn down junk food. However, eating too much junk food can harm your body, particularly if you’re between the ages of 10 and 19.

“Junk food shapes adolescent (青春期的) brains in ways that impair (损害) their ability to think, learn and remember. It can also make it harder to control impulsive (冲动的) behaviors,” said Amy Reichelt, a brain and nutrition specialist at Western University, Canada.

Reichelt and two other researchers reviewed more than 100 studies about how poor food choices can affect adolescent brains. They found adolescents are more sensitive than any other age group to foods with a lot of fat and sugar, as their brains are not yet fully formed.

Adolescent brains are still developing the ability to control themselves. The prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) is the part of the brain that helps us do this. However, this region doesn’t fully develop until we are in our early 20s.

Meanwhile, teen brains get more excited from rewards. The parts of the brain that make us feel good when we eat junk food are fully developed by the teen years. In fact, these regions are even more sensitive (敏感的) when we are young. Therefore, the teen brain has two strikes (攻击) against it when it comes to turning down junk food.

Reichelt and her team conducted their own study using mice, whose brains develop much like our own. They discovered that “teenage” mice that had a high-fat diet performed worse on memory tests than those eating a normal diet.

So, what’s the best way to say no to junk food? Researchers suggest exercise. When we exercise, the brain’s reward system becomes less sensitive to food cues (暗示). Exercise also helps our brains grow and become better able to make smart decisions.

8 . Have you ever bought Genki Forest (元气森林) sparkling water because it’s advertised as “sugar-free”?

The company said that the drinks are “sucrose-free” (零蔗糖), but this is not the same as “sugar-free”. Now the company then apologized for its misleading advertisement.

In fact, there are many kinds of sugar. Sucrose is just one of them. Other kinds of sugar, such as fructose (果糖) and sugar alcohol (糖醇), are still in Genki Forest drinks. These types of sugar are used as sweeteners (甜味剂). They offer little energy, but a small amount of them can make drinks taste sweet. That’s why diet drinks like Genki Forest are popular among people who want to lose weight.

However, studies find that sweetners might make people eat more. When you eat sweet-tasting things, it sends your brain a “sweet signal”. Then your brain tells your body to prepare itself to take in energy. But since the diet soft drink has little energy, the brain will not receive what is expecting. At this time, you will feel hungry and start getting energy by eating more food.

According to China Daily, drinking too many diet drinks might lead to obesity (肥胖). It’s time for you to think twice about the diet drink trend.