Many of us like to eat out and treat ourselves to delicious food. We are used to choosing hearty, fat-filled dishes and sugary desserts, which are not easily cooked at home.

The recent rise of light meals, however, gives us a smarter choice. According to Economic Daily, low-calorie, low-fat and high-fiber meals have become popular in China’s restaurants and online delivery platforms.

The country saw a rapid increase of restaurants concentrating on light meal. From just 600 in 2017 to more than 3,500 in 2018. According to a report published by Meituan a major online food delivery platform, the number of light meals ordered online also rise 75 percent from the previous year.

Having a light meal, however, doesn’t mean eating only vegetables. Different from the meat-free lifestyle, a typical light dish avoids oily, salty and spicy food. Instead, it contains things like boiled meat, whole grains, fruits and vegetables.

Healthy nutrients are the theme of the light meal. These dishes are useful for keeping healthy and controlling your weight. That’s probably why so many people, especially the youths are into them.

They see it as “a great way to avoid getting fat,” wrote the Telegraph.

“After eating several light meals, I now prefer light flavours,” Zou Jing a college teacher in Wuhan, told China Daily. She shared a picture of her lunch: a mixture of beef eggs, corn, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.

These changes in eating behaviour are connected to deeper changes in how people think about food, says Walter Willett. Chairman of the nutrition department at the Hanard T. Chan School of Public Health, U.S.,“ Diet quality, not quantity is important for both weight control and long-term well-being.” Willett told The New York Times. So the next time you have a party with friends, try a light meal, it will satisfy, not only your stomachs but may be also your hearts.

Drinking alcohol (酒) is dangerous for kids and teenagers and sometimes for grown-ups, too. Like many drugs, alcohol changes a person’s ability to think and speak. A person might lose his or her balance (平衡) and have trouble walking. When people drink too much, they might hurt themselves or other people. Worse still, drinking too much alcohol can cause alcohol poisoning (中毒), and it can kill a person. Drinking too much alcohol can be bad for their health.

Some grown-ups seem to be able to enjoy it with no problems, but other people can develop problems with it. Sometimes, that’s called alcoholism. People with alcoholism have little control over their drinking and can’t stop without help. Alcoholism continues over time and it often gets worse.

Therefore, as teenagers, you should say no to alcohol, though it can be hard if you feel unpopular because of your decision. True friends won’t stop being your friends just because you don’t want to drink alcohol. If you feel this kind of pressure, talk to someone you believe in. And if you’re worried about a friend who’s drinking, you should tell your mother or your father or one of your teachers. Then someone can talk with your friend before the alcohol causes a big problem.

In short, with help, anyone who has a problem with alcohol can be successful at stopping. And if you’re still a kid, help yourself by not starting in the first place!

The COVID-19 has changed every aspect of our lives, including our eating habits. Comfort food was made for times like these, and it seems the healthy-food trend that took root in recent years is reversing (彻底转变), at least for the time being. Shopping habits have changed. To be in favor of old processed foods like frozen pizza, hot cakes and canned spaghetti, convenience foods with long shelf life are designed.

No judgment here. Money is tight in many families, and busy parents are putting breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table in between video conference meetings. Besides, convenience foods are engineered to taste good and make us feel good (at least in the short term).

But you might want to save room for something green on your plate, if you can find it at the store. That’s because a growing body of research is showing that our food choices don’t just affect our shapes. What we eat also may affect our mood and behavior—and not in the “I can’t believe I ate a dozen cookies in one sitting” sort of way. Indeed, there may be something in the food we’re eating (or not eating) that's influencing our state of mind.

The emerging(新兴的) field of nutritional psychology states that modern Western diets have contributed to increased rates of mental illness, particularly depression and anxiety. Diets that follow a Mediterranean pattern of eating—with a lot of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, fish and olive oil—have been connected with lower rates of depression. A diet change of just a few weeks has been found to change moods.

As a third of all Americans are reporting that the coronavirus pandemic has done harm to their mental health, we might need nutritious food more than ever.