Most young people in America today, unfortunately, have very unhealthy eating habits.     1     研究表明，现在十几岁的青少年比以前吃了更多经过加工处理的食物。When eating out they choose fast food restaurants for the obvious reasons. They are cheap, noisy and usually filled with people of their own age. However, fast food restaurants are not their only source of unhealthy food. The modern day family usually has both parents working outside home and this means parents don’t often have the time to prepare healthy nutritious meals for their family. Supermarkets today are filled with prepackaged, instant foods.     2     Therefore, even home-cooked meals might not be that healthy.

    3     Another factor to young people’s unhealthy eating habits is that there seem to be no regular meal times these days. Most people skip breakfast because they don’t have time or, if they do have something, it is usually of little nutritious value such as toast and jam or a doughnut. Lunch is also a problem. When they have a lunch break, a lot of people use their lunchtime to socialize and they don’t want to spend a lot of time eating.     4     结果是，午饭时间最受欢迎的食物就是各种零食。 These come in the form of burgers, fries, hotdogs or sandwiches which are usually on white bread with plenty of butter and processed foods, such as cheese or luncheon meats.     5     放学后，大多数的学生是饥饿的，所以他们用饼干和其他不健康的零食充饥。 If they end their day with a meal of pizza or some other ready-made food, they have not had anything fresh or nutritious to eat all day. Combined with sugary soft drinks the average young person’s diet is unhealthier now than it has ever been!