As a student, you are often under a lot of stress. You may find it difficult to avoid bad habits.     1    . It really isn’t that hard to start eating healthily.

Eat a good breakfast.

Studies show that skipping breakfast (不吃早餐) is bad for students’ study. When there isn’t time for you to sit down and enjoy your morning meal,     2    .

Keep healthy snacks on hand.

This way, if you are hungry during a late night or the break between classes, you can enjoy them at any time.

Eat plenty of foods rich in calcium (钙).

    3    . If you don’t like milk, try to prepare some low-fat yogurt, cheese and green leafy vegetables in your diet.

    4    .

Your body needs at least eight glasses of water a day. And if you often exercise, you may need more. To remind yourself, carry a water bottle along to the classroom and keep it convenient during a late study night.

Control your sugar intake.

Sugar provides calories for your body.     5    . So put a little sugar in your coffee, tea, or milk every day.

When you have food, please keep happy. Every time, please enjoy it!

3 . Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? It probably depends on what you’re doing for the rest of it. Before the industrial revolution, most people had leftovers or nothing for breakfast. Edward Bernays created a marketing project in the 1920s that made eggs and bacon a common breakfast choice. But in today’s world, fewer people work physically challenging jobs, so is it still necessary to begin the day with a protein-rich meal or a bowl of porridge? Does it matter if you don’t—and might there actually be health benefits to breaking your fast later in the day?

First, let’s hear from the breakfast supporters. Some studies suggest that breakfast-skippers have a risk of heart disease and high blood sugar, across a range of populations around the world. At the same time, other studies show breakfast-skippers are more likely to choose poorer foods throughout the day—which makes sense, as skipping breakfast seems to keep levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin (饥饿激素) high, while the satiety hormone leptin (饱腹感激素瘦素) stays suppressed.

Breakfast eaters often have healthier habits, but not always. What if some people really care about their health but choose to skip breakfast? Well, actually...

“Skipping breakfast can be described as a kind of time-restricted feeding’ (限时进食), as you reduce the ‘window’ when you can eat,” says the nutritionist (营养学家) Drew Price. “If I was working with someone who wanted a breakfast-skipping-type plan, then I would be paying more attention than ever to what they are eating to make sure they get enough protein, healthy fats and other beneficial nutrients. However, skipping breakfast isn’t suitable for everyone, especially those people with disordered eating, certain health conditions, and those who are young or elderly, for whom balanced energy intake is important.”

What should you do then? Just eat in the way that lets you make the healthiest choices, most long-lastingly. If that means a couple of fried eggs and some vegetables at 7 a.m., great, but if all you need to make it to 11 a.m. is a strong cup of coffee, don’t worry about it too much. Oh, and if a bowl of porridge can help guide you away from your basic needs, then go for it—we can all use a bit of help in the morning, after all.

4 . Colorful fruits and vegetables are good for our health. Their natural colors help protect our bodies from disease. Think about the colors of fruits and vegetables: the red of tomatoes, the orange of carrots, the yellow of bananas and the purple of grapes.

You can enjoy eating fruits and vegetables of all colors: green, yellow, orange, blue, purple and white. After studying different colors of fruits and vegetables, scientists have found how these different colors of fruits and vegetables keep us healthy. Each color is important to our health. These colors work together to protect our bodies. The list below shows the benefits of some colors in fruits and vegetables:

◆Red helps keep our heart strong. It can lessen the risk of heart disease. Apples, strawberries, tomatoes are good choices.

◆Yellow can make our skin better. Lemons can help our skin look white.

◆Orange is good for our eyes. We can eat more carrots, pumpkins and oranges.

◆Green helps our hair and bones grow better. So if you want to grow taller, eat more green fruits and vegetables.

◆Blue is good for our brains. It can help us keep a good memory as we grow old.

So when you are buying or eating fruits and vegetables, remember to try different colors of fruits and vegetables.

7 . About 80% of people do not get enough vitamin (维生素) D every day. But this vitamin is very important for your health.

Vitamin D is really important for our bones (骨骼). When we are young, vitamin D builds up our bones and makes them strong. When we are older, we still need vitamin D to keep our bones strong. Our bodies keep the vitamin D in our bones and teeth. Then we lose vitamin D as we work and exercise during the day. But our bodies can’t make vitamin D. So we have to get it from outside of our bodies.

Where can a person get this very important vitamin? Vitamin D is in foods like fish and eggs. Sometimes, vitamin D is added to bread, milk, and orange juice. Food is not the only way our bodies can get vitamin D. The sun also gives us vitamin D. If we want to be healthy, we should spend some time in the sun each day. Too much sun is not good for you, but about 15 minutes a day is usually enough. And we should be sure to eat foods that are rich in vitamin D, too.

9 . At the end of year 2022, the Singaporean government announced that all drinks sold locally must use nutritional grade labels (营养等级标签) A, B, C, or D on their packaging, marking the percentage of sugar and saturated fat (饱和脂肪) in the drinks. So recently several Singaporean drink companies have already started to put these labels on every drink. In March, 2024 Shanghai, China did the same. The labels are from A to D. The more sugar and saturated fat a drink has, the less healthy the drink is.

10 . Chips, cookies and ice-cream...Many kinds of food that we like are ultra-processed (超加工). And you may be addicted to (上瘾) them, said a new study in the British Medical Journal.

What are ultra-processed foods (UPFs)? In short, you can’t re-create them in your kitchen. They are usually made in factories. They have long list of additives (添加剂)—some you may never have heard of.

The study looked into 281 other studies from 36 different countries and areas. It found that UPF lovers may strongly crave such food. If they stop eating it, they can feel very sad.

Why are UPFs addictive? Usually, natural foods are either high in carbohydrates (碳水化合物) or high in fat.

UPFs, however, are usually high in both. So, such foods can have more calories than natural foods.

Such foods also bring carbohydrates and fat to the gut (肠道) faster. Our body breaks down the fat from natural foods slowly. However, the body breaks down the fat in UPFs as soon as it reaches the stomach. This makes the brain create more dopamine (多巴胺). It makes you feel happier and want to eat more.

About 14 percent of adults and 12 percent of children are addicted to UPFs, said the study. They cause problems to people’s health around the world. Scientists are now calling for more attention to the UPFs.