Overweight(超重) is one of the biggest health problems now. Being overweight affects more than how you look. Too much fat can kill you.

What’s worse, overweight children turn into overweight adults. If you’re obese (肥胖的) now, you probably will grow into an obese adult. But here’s good news. You can fight overweight.

Change your eating habits.

You are what you eat. Kids like snacks. Did you list any healthy snacks? One study of eating habits showed that soft drinks are the first in the snack list (列表). Next, kids choose salty snacks, like chips. What’s more, the list is full of junk food from No. 3 to No. 11. Finally, No. 12, kids picked a healthy snack— fruit. So, think about your snack choice again.

Get outside to exercise.

Jim, a player on his school football team, had a weight problem not a long time ago. He could never get anyone to play with him. So his father and he started playing football for a few minutes every night. Ten minutes turned into an hour or more. In just a few years, the heavy kid became athletic, fit and healthy.

More TV means more fat.

Nearly every American kid watches TV for 2 hours and 56 minutes every day— that adds up to 44 days a year of sitting. More TV (or more Internet surfing, or more computer games) means more fat.

Eat an apple a day, walk around the house, play with your family... Do it today, and do it more tomorrow. It will help you a lot.

Mario was going to cut his birthday cake when his mother said, “Not so fast, Mario. I think you have one more gift coming.” “Really? What is it?” Mario asked.

His father walked to Mario’s chair. “Son, I have been waiting for this day to give you a very special gift. My father gave it to me when I was about your age. I have preserved it for years. Now I want to give it to you.” He then placed an old shoebox in front of Mario.

“This is my stamp collection(邮票收藏品),son,” his father said. “Your grandfather and I worked on it together. Now I want you to have it. We can go to the post office tomorrow after school, and you can pick out one of the new stamp sets to add to your collection.”

Mario tried to be excited about his gift, but he didn’t understand what was so great about a box of old stamps. “Thanks, Dad,” he said with a forced smile(勉强的微笑).

Then he noticed that his sister Felicia was looking at the stamps. “Look at this one!” she said excitedly. “It’ s from the year I was born(出生). Hey, Mario, here’s one from the year you were born, too!”

“That’s right,” said Mario’s grandfather. “All the stamps are from important years in our lives.”

Mario began to understand why the box was so important. He moved close to Felicia so that he could see the stamps better.

According to a survey, a lot of students hardly spend time on sports. Is it because they aren’t     51     in sports? No, they often say they have other important things to do.

What are these important things? Tests! They have to spend much time     52     for all kinds of tests at school. So many of     53     almost study for tests every day. Tests stop them from going out for sports. To get better grades, students have to work harder and spend     54     of their time on books.

All in all, education can’t go without exercise. If you don’t have a healthy body, you may never get     55     in your life.

Many parents think that it’s very difficult to get their children to do chores. But I think it’s easy to get children to do chores.

My daughter, Lucy is ten years old. At night, I write down her chores for the following day. Then I stick (贴) the paper with chores on her door. So she knows her chores by reading the paper on the door. Usually she gets three to eight chores a day. It depends on how she does chores. If she does all of her chores well, she can get fewer chores the next day. Some chores are easy, such as sweeping the floor, folding the clothes and cleaning the table after dinner.

For my other two children, the chores are different because they are very young. They both know how to put their empty (空的) dinner plates into the dish-washer (洗碗机). My 19 month-old son helps me put the dirty clothes in the washing machine (洗衣机) when I am washing the clothes. They can also help me when I’m working in the yard. They help me pick up the sticks (树枝) and throw them away.