After drawing blood and running a CT scan, the doctor had questions for me. “What is a typical day like for you?” “I am a graduate student with a tight schedule that usually keeps me at work late into the night,” I replied. Next, he turned to diet. I paused when this question came, embarrassed by my answer. “I only have coffee for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, I usually grab something from a fast-food stand on campus.” The doctor seemed shocked. As more questions followed about my stress levels and lifestyle, my unhealthy state began to sink in.

In graduate school, I was fully focused on my project and doing what I could to become a successful scientist. I didn’t feel I had the time or energy to shop for groceries and cook. I stopped exercising and didn’t spend as much time socializing. When I was sluggish, instead of giving my mind and body a rest, I drank energy boosters to maintain my strength and continued to work long hours. As I progressed through my PhD Program, I gained an unhealthy amount of weight. I got tired easily and I often caught colds or the flu. Eventually, my stomachache was so bad that it drove me to the emergency room.

After hearing the doctor’s warning, I knew I had no choice. I stopped working late into the night, which gave me more time to relax, sleep, and prepare my own meals. I read up on dietary recommendations and began to choose nutritious and healthy food. I also gave up energy drinks and switched to tea. Many times, I was tempted to go back to my old routine. I placed sticky notes in my office and at home to remind myself that if I didn’t make healthy choices, I’d suffer consequences.

It’s been 4 years now and, to my surprise, I have not only noticed gains in my health, but also found it easier to be productive at work.

Christian Eijkman，a Dutch doctor，left the Netherlands for the island of Java. Many people on the island had a disease called beri-beri. He was going there to try and find a cure.

At first，Eijkman thought some kind of germ（细菌）caused beri-beri. He raised some chickens. He didn't eat them，but made experiments on them. The local people were quite surprised at that. One day he noticed that his chickens became sick when they were fed the food most Javanese ate refined white rice（精炼米）. When he fed them with unrefined rice，also known as brown rice，they recovered. Eijkman realized that he had made an important discovery—that some things in food could prevent disease. These things were named vitamins（维生素）. The Javanese were not getting enough vitamins because they had actually removed the part that contains vitamins. Later，other diseases were also found to be caused by the lack of vitamins in a person’s food.

Today many people know the importance of vitamins and they make sure they have enough vitamins from the food they eat. If they don’t，they can also take vitamin pills.

The federal school lunch program for 30 million low-income children was created more than half a century ago to combat malnutrition (营养不良). A breakfast program was added during the 1960s, and both attempted to improve the nutritional value of food served at school.

More must be done to fight the childhood obesity epidemic, which has caused a frightening peak in weight-related disorders like diabetes, high-blood pressure and heart disease among young people. The place to start is schools, where junk food sold outside the federal meals program — through snack bars and vending machines — has pretty much canceled out the benefits of all those efforts.

Federal rules that govern the sales of these harmful foods at school are limited and have not been updated for nearly 40 years. Until new regulations are written, children who are served healthy meals in the school cafeteria will continue to buy candy drinks and high sodium snacks elsewhere in school.

Many states’ school districts have taken positive steps, but others are likely to resist, especially districts that sell junk food to finance athletic programs, extracurricular activities, and even copier expenses.

Those districts should take note of a study released in 2009 in West Virginia showing that the budgetary costs of switching from sodas to healthy drinks such as fruit juice, milk, and water were very little. Even if the switch costs money, so be it. The school should not be trading their students’ health to buy office supplies.

Over the last five decades, the obesity rates for adolescents have tripled. Unless there is decisive action, weight and inactivity-related disorders will bother a steady larger proportion of the work force and replace smoking as the leading cause of premature death.