You’ve most likely heard the news by now: A car-commuting, desk-bound, TV-watching lifestyle can be harmful to our health. All the time that we spend rooted in the chair is linked to increased risks of so many deadly diseases that experts have named this modern-day health epidemic the “sitting disease”.

Sitting for too long slows down the body’s metabolism (新陈代谢) and the way enzymes (酶) break down our fat reserves, raising both blood sugar levels and blood pressure. Small amounts of regular activity, even just standing and moving around, throughout the day is enough to bring the increased levels back down. And those small amounts of activity add up—30 minutes of light activity in two or three-minute bursts can be just as effective as a half-hour block of exercise. But without that activity, blood sugar levels and blood pressure keep creeping up, steadily damaging the inside of the arteries (动脉) and increasing the risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and other serious diseases. In essence, fundamental changes in biology occur if you sit for too long.

But wait, you’re a runner. You needn’t worry about the harm of a sedentary lifestyle because you exercise regularly, right? Well, not so fast. Recent studies show that people spend an average of 64 hours a week sitting, whether or not they exercise 150 minutes a week as recommended by World Health Organization (WHO). Regular exercisers, furthermore, are found to be about 30 percent less active on days when they exercise. Overall, most people simply aren’t exercising or moving around enough to counteract all the harm that can result from sitting nine hours or more a day.

Scared straight out of your chair? Good. The remedy is as simple as standing up and taking activity breaks.

A project in Britain is trying to deal with the loneliness of the old by asking young people to work as volunteers to help the old.

Lorna Burnett was paired with 15-year-old Ailsa, a schoolgirl, through the Reading Friends project. Lorna used to read two to three books every week when she was a librarian. In her 40s, she developed a serious eye disease and her vision became worse and worse. Finally, she was unable to read or watch television for any length of time without her eyes hurting.

Not only have Lorna’s reading periods with Ailsa helped to reconnect her with her love for literature, they have also built a strong intergenerational friendship. “I chose a book and she would come along and read it to me,” Lorna said.

Since the Reading Agency started the program in 2017, they have introduced tens of Reading Friends periods across Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England.

According to the organisation’s website, “Loneliness is an important health and wellbeing problem for older people. Research shows that reading together can help older people to build social networks and connect with others. Fact also shows that reading has a good influence on cognitive functions (认知能力) and wellbeing and can reduce the risk of dementia (痴呆).”

Ruth Sheppard from Bannock bum High School is responsible for connecting schoolchildren like Ailsa with the program and she says that it has had an amazing influence on the young people. “We have wonderful young people at our school and we want to get them into the community,” Sheppard said. “It has been fantastic to see them become more confident as well as improving their reading ability and social skills. They are meeting community members like Lorna that they are making friendships with, and all the library workers also help them.”

Influenced by their families and society, many youths are infatuated with expensive famous brands. But not every youth is as rich as a millionaire and people are getting worried about this.

According to a recent survey, one out of five pupils wears clothes of well-known brands , including a belt worth 560 Yuan, more than an ordinary worker’s salary. Among the 100 middle school students surveyed, as many as 70 own famous-brand clothes ,60 have famous-brand watches and 45 possess famous-brand bicycles. Two of them even wear over 1500 Yuan worth of suits.

Most young people who come from ordinary families will try to steal money to have better food and clothing if their parents don’t satisfy their needs. A boy named Chen even killed another boy simply for 500 Yuan and was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.

People wonder how these teenagers can be independent in the future, while parents are calling for help from schools, governments and the society.