1 . Mice were given a memory test in a lab at the University of New South Wales, in Australia. Scientist Margaret Morris set them in their usual box, but she rearranged the objects in the box. Some mice smelled them curiously, but others just moved on. They didn’t remember the objects were once in a different place.
The mice with sharper memory were fed with a regular diet of low-fat, healthy food. However, the mice that ate lots of junk food for two weeks — such as cake, meat pies, chips, and cookies — were forgetful.
Food can have the same effect on people, too. “If you’re eating junk food regularly, and not eating enough fruit and vegetables,” Morris said, “the changes inside your body may be affecting brain function.” Changes inside the body can affect a person’s overall health, too.
Scientists have long known that the brain communicates with the stomach to control digestion. Recently, they have found that the stomach talks back. It may even tell the brain what to do.
Foods with too much salt and sugar affect the microbiome (肠道菌群) in your body by killing the right bacteria (细菌) in it. These bacteria protect you from illness and keep your mind sharp. Lacking them can lead to being overweight and depression.
Robert Knight is a scientist at the University of California, San Diego. He suggests eating yogurt, because it is packed with healthy bacteria. Does that mean no French fries? “Having them sometimes is okay,” Knight says. “It’s the long-term habits that really matter. Being good to your microbiome over the next six months is a lot more important than what you ate yesterday, or what you eat tomorrow.”
1. In the memory test, some mice moved on because ________.| A．they are forgetful | B．they eat a lot of food |
| C．they are not curious | D．they eat low-fat food |
| A．microbiome | B．bacteria |
| C．too much salt and sugar | D．yogurt |
| A．People must not eat French fries to protect their mircobiomes. |
| B．Eating yogurt for six month is good for body health. |
| C．It’s necessary to maintain long-term healthy eating habits. |
| D．What you eat tomorrow is the most important thing. |
| A．The effects of food on memory | B．The effects of food on mice |
| C．The effects of microbiome on health | D．The effects of food on health |
| A．Cook his own meals. | B．Take some exercise. | C．Eat more fresh vegetables. |
3 . David Brunelli has eaten up a huge burger. He starts eating handfuls of French fries. If he eats them fast enough, he could win. The crowd shouts with excitement. Suddenly, a stream of food pours out of Brunell' s mouth. Puking (呕吐) during an eating competition means you lose. So Brunelli catches the food in his hands and pushes it back into his mouth. Welcome to the world of competitive eating.
Thousands of eating competitions take place around the world each year. To win, people like Brunelli eat huge amounts of food as quickly as possible.They eat everything from mountains of hot dogs to hundreds of chicken legs.
Some people say it is time for eating competitions to stop. One reason is that the competitions can lead to serious health problems. These include weight gain, heart disease, and stomach problems. In 2004, a woman died from choking (窒息) during a competition. Eating competitions can make overeating look attractive. This sets a bad example for fans. Also, millions of people in the world go hungry every day. That makes it seem wasteful to eat amounts of food just for fun.
Still, many people love competitive eating. They say it is a fun tradition that goes back many years. Fans point out that the group Major League Eating (MLE) runs professional eating competitions. At these competitions, injuries are uncommon. MLE always has doctors on hand.
Eating competitions allow people like Brunelli to get famous and win money. And the competitions are popular. Each July 4, more than a million people watch Nathan s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on TV. This year, will you be one of them?
1. Why does the author write the first paragraph?| A．To bring up the topic. | B．To introduce Brunelli. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To show some delicious food. |
| A．They have a short history. | B．They enjoy great popularity. |
| C．They are attractive to the poor | D．They introduce lots of new food. |
| A．The fun of watching eating competitions. |
| B．The health problems caused by overeating. |
| C．The difficulties in winning an eating competition. |
| D．The reasons why eating competitions should be stopped. |
| A．It trains many doctors. | B．Its prizes are unusual. |
| C．Its competitions are relatively safe. | D．It is an organizer of traditional competitions. |
4 . Maintaining good health doesn’t happen by accident.
A healthy diet is rich in fiber, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and omega-3 fatty acids (不饱和脂肪酸). These dietary components turn down inflammation (炎症), which can damage tissue, joints, and organs.
Finally, establish a good relationship with a primary care physician. A primary care physician is a healthcare professional who helps you manage your health. He or she is the first person you talk to when you have any medical problem that is not an emergency. If something happens to your health, a physician you know-and who knows you-is in the best position to help.
| A．Omega-3 fatty acids are of vital importance. |
| B．Physical activity is also necessary for good health. |
| C．Talking to trusted family members and friends can help a lot. |
| D．Going easy on processed foods is another element of healthy eating. |
| E．It requires smart lifestyle choices, workout and the occasional checkup and test. |
| F．He or she will also recommend tests to check for hidden cancer or other conditions. |
| G．Only a few lifestyle choices have as large an impact on your health as physical activity. |
You are watching your favorite TV show when a commercial break starts. First you see an ad for candy. Then there is one for fast food. Your stomach growls. Suddenly, all you can think about is how much you need a snack.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Researchers from McMaster University in Canada studied the effects of junk food ad. The researchers examined the effects of advertising junk food on more than 6000 kids through TV commercials and other types of media. They found that kids made unhealthy food and drink choices as quickly as 30 minutes after seeing the ads.
Food and drink ads are everywhere from TV to the Internet. Companies want to make sure you know about their products. They spend nearly 1. 8 billion a year on food ads aimed at kids according to a report.
The Nielsen Company tracked the number of food ads that kids saw in 2015. It found that kids watched nearly 12 food ads on TV each day. Most of these ads weren’t for healthy foods. In fact, on average. kids saw only one ad per week for fruits and vegetables. Instead, most of the ads were for fast food, candy and sugary drinks.
Jennifer Harris, a professor at the University of Connecticut, says this is a big part of the problem. “Unhealthy foods are not things we should be encouraging kids to cat more often”. Harris says. “But unfortunately those are the products being advertised to them the most”.
Health experts say it’s OK to treat yourself to a cookie once in a while. But what can you do to keep from having an unhealthy snack every time you see an ad for junk food? Harris says it’s important to learn to spot the techniques companies use in their ads, tell their kids what is going on and help kids think about whether these products are good for them.
1. What did researchers from MaMaster University find?2. What conclusion can you draw from the findings of Nielsen Company?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
To avoid negative impacts of advertisements for unhealthy food, parents should keep their kids from watching these kinds of advertisements.
4. Please briefly describe what you can do to reduce the negative impact of advertising on your life. (In about 40 words)
6 . According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions (同伴) can influence our food intake. And contrary (相反的) to existing research that says you should avoid eating with heavier people who order large portions (份), it’s the beanpoles with big appetites (饭量) you really need to avoid.
To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited into a lab to ostensibly (表面上) participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack. An actor hired by the researchers grabbed her food first. In her natural state, the actor weighed 105 pounds. But in half the cases she wore a specially designed fat suit which increased her weight to 180 pounds.
Both the fat and thin versions of the actor took a large amount of food. The participants followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have. However, they took significantly more when the actor was thin.
For the second test, in one case the thin actor took two pieces of candy from the snack bowls. In the other case, she took 30 pieces. The results were similar to the first test: the participants followed suit but took significantly more candy when the thin actor took 30 pieces.
The tests show that the social environment is extremely influential when we’re making decisions. If this fellow participant is going to eat more, so will I. Call it the “I’ll have what she’s having” effect. However, we’ll adjust the influence. If an overweight person is having a large portion, I’ll hold back a bit because I see the results of his eating habits. But if a thin person eats a lot, I’ll follow suit. If he can eat much and keep slim, why can’t I?
1. What is the recent study mainly about?| A．Food safety. | B．Movie viewership. |
| C．Consumer demand. | D．Eating behavior. |
| A．Big eaters. | B．Overweight persons. |
| C．Picky eaters. | D．Tall thin persons. |
| A．To see how she would affect the participants. | B．To test if the participants could recognize her. |
| C．To find out what she would do in the two tests. | D．To study why she could keep her weight down. |
| A．A news report. | B．A science textbook. |
| C．A research paper. | D．A travel brochure. |
7 . You may have read that light coming into your eyes sets the body’s clock. Similarly, food changes the clocks in tissues in your liver, muscles, and fat. Human beings developed to eat only during daylight, which lasted 12 hours. That meant we didn’t eat for 12 hours a day. Sticking to that plan may help you stay healthier as well as thinner. However, it’s a surprisingly bad idea to ignore breakfast, eat lunch or dinner late, eat a big bedtime snack, or eat in the middle of the night.
In a study with 776 participants, people who ignored breakfast were 80 percent more likely to have obesity (肥胖症). People who ate lunch after 12:30 (or dinner after 21:00) were 60 percent more likely to have those extra pounds. That was true for both men and women at different ages and regardless of other factors that affect weight including your diet and exercise habits.
Odd hours seem to contribute to uncontrollable eating. When you eat late at night, you tend to eat more. Perhaps driven by hormone (荷尔蒙) increases, we long for sweeter, saltier food at night, research suggests. In one study, night eaters ate about 300 more calories each day.
“Eating late in the day aggravates reflux, writes Jamie A. Koufman, who specializes in voice disorders and acid reflux (胃酸倒流). Many of my patients find that eating late makes them suffer more from their allergies and diabetes symptoms,” he says. “Give your stomach at least three hours to digest before sleeping,” advises Jonathan Aviv, another specialist in acid reflux.
Eating breakfast late may also increase your breast cancer risk by about 17 percent for every hour you delay, according to a study of nearly 1,200 women with breast cancer in Spain, compared to more than 1,300 women who didn’t develop breast cancer. If you eat late at night, another research suggests, you may up the chance of breast cancer occurrence. While researchers work out the details of how our body clocks affect digestion and their downstream effects, one point is clear: Early is better.
1. What can be learned from the first two paragraphs?| A．What you eat makes no difference to your clocks. |
| B．Not eating for a half day may do good to your health. |
| C．Eating late may be more harmful than ignoring breakfast. |
| D．People gain weight because of their diet and exercise habits. |
| A．Worsens. | B．Comforts. | C．Causes | D．Improves. |
| A．By experimenting on people of different ages. |
| B．By summarizing the data from various surveys. |
| C．By comparing the studies about the eating disorder. |
| D．By concluding some researches concerning eating habits. |
| A．Ignore Breakfast to Lose Weight. | B．Night Eaters Are Much Healthier. |
| C．Eating Late Is Really Bad for You. | D．Eating More Damages Body Clock. |
1. What does the speaker’s father do?
| A．A chef. | B．A waiter. | C．A restaurant owner. |
| A．Children. | B．Parents. | C．Grandparents. |
| A．Twelve years old. | B．Ten years old. | C．Eight years old. |
| A．He visited the White House. |
| B．He took part in a cooking contest. |
| C．He gave a speech on healthy eating. |
9 . I couldn’t sleep at all last night, and my sister believes it was because I ate a bowl of really spicy (辛辣的) food before bedtime. However, I was skeptical about the connection between spicy foods and sleep. Can eating spicy foods before bedtime truly impact one’s sleep quality? Some people believe that eating spicy foods before bedtime can disrupt sleep by increasing body temperature and causing heartburn. It may be worth avoiding spicy foods close to bedtime.
To find out the relation, the researchers in Australia conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of spicy foods on sleep. They provided a group of individuals with delicious late-night meals, alternating (交替) between spicy and mild options. The results revealed that consuming spicy foods led to disrupted sleep patterns, causing participants to take longer to fall asleep and sleep for shorter time. This data supported the belief that there is a correlation between eating spicy foods and experiencing sleep disturbances.
While the exact mechanism(机制)by which spicy foods influence sleep remains unclear, researchers have proposed several possibilities. One is that stomach discomfort resulting from spicy food consumption may affect sleep quality. Additionally, the long digestion (消化) of spicy foods could delay the start of sleep. Furthermore, spicy foods contain something that can raise body temperature, which has been linked to poor sleep in previous studies.
Given these findings, it is advisable to avoid consuming spicy foods before bedtime to promote better sleep. Next time, I will follow my sister’s advice and opt for a milder meal in the evening to ensure a restful night’s sleep.
1. What do people usually think of eating spicy foods before bedtime?| A．It can make people addictive to it. |
| B．It can be bad for digestion. |
| C．It can make sleep difficult. |
| D．It can lead to an increase in energy levels. |
| A．By analyzing data. | B．By studying papers. |
| C．By doing an experiment. | D．By doing interviews. |
| A．Spicy foods take long to digest. |
| B．Body temperature has no effect on sleep. |
| C．Bad eating habit changes sleep patterns. |
| D．Sleep problems may be caused by bad habits. |
| A．To forbid children from having spicy foods. |
| B．To suggest not eating spicy foods before bedtime. |
| C．To promote some healthy food that is not spicy. |
| D．To keep up with the latest healthy food research. |
10 . The food we eat seems to have profound effects on our health. Although science has made enormous steps in making food more fit to eat, it has, at the same time, made many foods unfit to eat.
Some research has shown that perhaps eighty percent of all human illnesses are related to diet and forty percent of cancer is related to the diet as well, especially cancer of the colon. Different cultures are more likely to cause certain different illnesses because of the food that is characteristic in these cultures. That food is related to illness is not a new discovery. In 1945, about 35 years ago, government researchers realized that nitrates, commonly used to preserve color in meats, and other food additives, caused cancer. Yet, these carcinogenic additives remain in our food, and it becomes more difficult all the time to know which things on the packaging labels of processed food are helpful or harmful. The additives which we eat are not all so direct. Farmers often give penicillin to beef and living animals, and because of this, penicillin has been found in the milk of treated cow. Sometimes similar drugs are given to animals not for medical purposes, but for financial reasons. The farmers are simply trying to fatten the animals in order to obtain a higher price on the market. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has tried repeatedly to control these procedures, the practices continue.
1. What is the best possible title of the passage?| A．Drug and Food | B．Cancer and Health |
| C．Food and Health | D．Health and Drug |
| A．Drugs are always given to animals for medical reasons |
| B．Some of the additives in our food are added to the food itself and some are given to the living animals. |
| C．Researchers have known about the potential dangers of food additives for over thirty-five years. |
| D．Food may cause forty percent of cancer in world. |
| A．Because of science, diseases caused by polluted food haven been virtually eliminated. |
| B．It has caused a lack of information concerning the value of food. |
| C．Because of the application of science, some potentially harmful substances have been added to food. |
| D．The scientists have preserved the color of meats, but not of vegetables. |
| A．trouble-making | B．color-retaining |
| C．money-making | D．cancer-causing |
