Over the years, Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, has studied such things as how far Americans typically drive to buy food, how many times we refill our plates at all-you-can-eat buffets and how we organize our kitchens. In the mid-2000s he famously coined the phrase “mindless eating” (and wrote a book by that name) to focus attention on all the bad dietary decisions we make without really thinking about them.

His new book, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life, aims to change the design of restaurants, school lunchrooms, office cafeterias and homes so that the mindless choices we make will be more healthful ones. Some examples:

Keep kitchen counters clear. No visible snack food, no bread, no nuts — not even breakfast cereal. In Wansink’s research, “women who had even one box of breakfast cereal that was visible — anywhere in their kitchen — weighed 21 pounds more than their neighbor who didn’t.”

Trick yourself into drinking less wine. “We tend to focus on the height of what we pour and not the width, so we pour 12 percent less wine into taller wineglasses than we pour into wider wineglasses.” And the shape of the glass is not the only variable that affects how much we drink. Wansink writes: “Because red wine is easier to see than white wine, we pour 9 percent less red wine whenever we pour a glass.”

Wansink said his researchers also found that people ate less at restaurants when sitting in well-lighted areas near windows and doors, than in darker areas or in the back. They ate less if they were offered a doggie bag, or to-go box, before they got their meals: apparently the idea of getting a “free” second meal outweighed the impulse (冲动) to clean their plates. Workers who frequently ate at their desks weighed 15.4 pounds less, on average, than those who didn’t. Fruits and vegetables kept on the top shelf of the refrigerator were eaten at higher rates than those on lower shelves.

The point, Wansink says, is to consider findings like those and change your environment or habits. Then you won’t have to think about it: You’ll just eat less.

"Liking" healthy foods on social media platforms like Facebook may encourage others to eat a balanced diet, new research has found.

For the study, the research team asked 369 university students to estimate the amount of fruit, vegetables, and sugary drinks their Facebook friends consumed on daily basis. They then cross-referenced this information with the participants’ own actual eating habits and showed that those who felt their online social circles"approved" of eating junk food (垃圾食品) consumed significantly more themselves,in fact, an extra portion (一份) of unhealthy snack foods and sugary drinks for every three portions they believed their online social circles did.

Conversely, those who thought their friends ate a healthy diet had more portions of fruit and vegetables. These habits could have developed from seeing friends' posts about the food and drinks they consumed, or simply a general impression of their overall health.

There was no significant link between the participants’ eating habits and their body mass index (体重指数), an indicator of weight. The researchers said the next stage of their work would track a participant group over time to see whether the influence of social media on eating habits had a longer-term impact on weight and overall health.

The researchers said the findings to date provide the first evidence to suggest our online social circles could be silently influencing our eating habits, with important implications for using social media to encourage healthy eating.

"With children and young people spending a huge amount of time interacting with influencers via social media, the important new findings from this study could help shape how we deliver interventions that help them adopt healthy eating habits from a young age, and stick with them for life," added Claire Farrow, director of Aston University' s Applied Health Research Group

In high school, it’s important to stay healthy.【小题1】How can you study well if you’re sick? So you should pay attention to your health in order to study well in high school. In order to enjoy good health, you should have some good habits. Here are some tips for you.Drink water regularly every day. Some students don’t like drinking water. They only drink water when they’re extremely thirsty.【小题2】You should drink water regularly so that your body and brain can function well. Avoid sports drinks and soda when you’re thirsty. They are not good for your health.【小题3】Some students don’t eat three meals a day. No matter what happens, you shouldn’t skip any meal of the day. Eating regularly helps keep your metabolism (新陈代谢) high and keeps your energy up. It’s especially important to eat a good breakfast every day with protein, carbohydrates(碳水化合物), and fiber to set up your body for the day of activity. If you don’t eat, how can you stay focused in class?Eat the right foods. Some students eat whatever they can get. This is wrong.【小题4】Choose whole grains like rice and whole wheat flours. Skip muffins, donuts and other processed foods. Instead, choose whole grains, protein, fruits and vegetables.【小题5】If you do that, you may not pay attention to how much you are eating. You may eat too much. Eating too much harms your health. And you may gain too much weight because of it. Try to eat slowly so your brain sends the right signals to tell your belly that’s full.