In the United States, 30 percent of the people have a “weight problem”. To many people the cause is obvious (明显的): they eat too much. But scientific evidence (证据) does little to support this idea. Going back to America of 1910, we find that people were thinner than today, yet they ate more food. In those days people worked harder physically, walked more, used machines much less, and didn’t watch television.

Several modern studies, moreover, have shown that fatter people don’t eat more on average than thinner people. A 1979 study of 3,545 London office workers showed that fat people eat less than slim (苗条的) people.

Studies also show that slim people are more active than fat people. A study by a research group at Stanford University found the following interesting facts:

The more the man ran, the greater loss of the body fat.

The more they ran, the greater increase in food intake.

Thus, those who ran the most ate the most, yet lost the greatest amount of body fat.

Parents can cut the chances of their children getting fat simply by keeping them longer at table. Just three extra minutes at a family mealtime could help avoid child fatness. Research found that the reasons might lie in communication and the importance of a scheduled mealtime.

Dr.Barbara Fiese said, “ Children, whose families have a 20­minute meal over four times a week, weigh less than kids who leave the table after 15 to 17 minutes. Over time, those extra minutes per meal add up and become really powerful.”

Researchers studied 200 family mealtimes, testing the influences of mealtime behavior of families with children in primary school. They found that families, who said that shared mealtimes were an important part of family life and had special meaning for them, were less likely to have fat children. Similarly, families, who talked more together and communicated more positively during the meal, were more likely to have healthy­weight children.

Teaching families how to make the most of family mealtimes was a wise idea. Dr. Fiese said, “ This is something we can target and teach.” She added. “It’s also important to recognize the increasing differences of families and their sometimes complex living schedules that may challenge their abilities to plan ahead and set some time to communicate with each other.”

Families in poorer US neighborhoods faced a lot of problems, including poor chances of getting healthy food. But even so, regular high quality family mealtimes made a difference to the children’s weight. Dr. Fiese said, “Three to four extra minutes per meal will make a healthy weight more possible.”

The Government’s sugar tax on soft drinks has brought in half as much money as Ministers first predicted it would generate, the first official data on the policy has shown.

First announced in April, 2016, the tax which applies to soft drinks containing more than 5g of sugar per 100ml, was introduced to help reduce childhood obesity (肥胖). It is believed that today’s children and teenagers are consuming three times the recommended level of sugar, putting them at a higher risk of the disease.

Initially the sugar tax was expected to make £520m a year for the Treasury. However, data of the first six months showed it would make less than half this amount. At present it is expected to generate £240m for the year ending in April 2019, which will go to school sports.

It comes after more than half of soft drinks sold in shops have had their sugar levels cut by manufacturers (制造商) so they can avoid paying the tax. Drinks now contain 45 million fewer kilos of sugar as a result of manufacturers’ efforts to avoid the charge, according to Treasury figures. Since April drinks companies have been forced to pay between 18p and 24p for every litre of sugary drink they produce or import, depending on the sugar content.

However some high sugar brands, like Classic Coca Cola, have accepted the sugar tax and are refusing to change for fear of upsetting consumers. Fruit juices, milk-based drinks and most alcoholic drinks are free of the tax, as are small companies manufacturing fewer than 1m litres per year.

Today’s figures, according to one government official, show the positive influence the sugar tax is having by raising millions of pounds for sports facilities (设施) and healthier eating in schools. Helping the next generation to have a healthy and active childhood is of great importance, and the industry is playing its part.