Our lifestyles today are very busy. We have family, school, sports, entertainment and social activities to fit into a time that seems never enough. We need to be healthy to meet the demands of daily life. But what does it mean to have a healthy lifestyle?

To have a healthy lifestyle, we need to:

◆eat different kinds of healthy food most of the time

◆do exercise often

◆have time to relax

◆get enough sleep to give our bodies time to grow healthy and strong

Read about a normal day in the lives of two children.

Abbey gets up at 7:00 a.m., feeds the dog, and has cereal(谷类食物)and a glass of juice for breakfast. She walks to school with her friend, Julia. She has a bag of chips for a morning snack, drinks water, and has a chicken and lecture sandwich with a banana for lunch. She likes to play soccer with her friends at lunch and morning break time. She walks home with Julia, and plays with a dog for a while. She plays computer games for an hour or two before dinner, then has a shower and does her homework. She watches her favorite television show for an hour, and then usually goes to bed at about 9:30 p.m.

Carl gets up at 8:30 a.m. and has two pieces of bread with jam and a glass of milk for breakfast. His mother drives him to school on her way to work. He eats cookies with juice for a morning snack and a pot pie ordered from the school lunch room with juice for lunch. He likes to play card games with his friends at lunchtime and climb the fixed equipment at morning break time. He catches the bus home, has a cereal bar and a can of soda for an afternoon snack, and then watches television. He has a shower before dinner, and then plays on the computer for an hour or two. He goes to bed at about 10:30 p.m.

No matter which kind of lifestyle you agree on, just remember it’s important to balance all aspects of life.

Those pretty little brown spots (斑点) on the skin might be common, but freckles (雀斑) remain a bit of a mystery to many — including those who have them. We interviewed three top skin doctors to explain the mysterious spots.

“They get darker in the summertime, when the skin is in strong sunlight, and fade, or lose color, in the wintertime,” says Dr. Joshua Zeichner at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. “The sun’s ultraviolet rays help some skin cells to produce more melanin (黑色素) in the skin.”

Contrary to popular belief, nobody is born with freckles, which generally don’t pop up until adolescence. That is, some young people start to have freckles when they are developing into adults.

“But freckles often ‘run in the family,’ especially in families that have fair (白皙的) skin,” says Jessica Wu, MD, a Los Angeles-based doctor. “People with fair skin and red or blond hair may have the same skin cells as their parents. Such skin cells are more sensitive to ultraviolet rays, so they produce more melanin in those spots.”

The spots themselves are nothing to fear, but those who have freckles are often fair-skinned as well, which in turn makes them more likely to get skin cancer, warns Dr. Howard Murad, who is known as “the Father of Internal Skincare.”

Freckles can be lightened with proper treatment, and new freckles often fade on their own. As with many things in life, prevention is key. “Wear sunscreen (防晒霜) every day as part of your lifestyle, like brushing your teeth, ” says Zeichner. Wu agrees, “I do warn my patients with freckles to understand the necessity of wearing sunscreen.”

Safe sun practice is important for everyone, but having freckles means you need to be extra careful. “You are likely to get more of them — in addition to risk of skin cancer — if you don’t use sun protection,” warns Wu.

When you picture a farm, do you think of green fields and a big red barn? The farms of the future may look very different from that. That’s because farms do not have to be outside anymore. They also won’t have to be above ground. In London, 100 feet below the streets there was a huge empty abandoned space. It was unused for almost 70 years before it was turned into the world’s first underground farm.

Richard Ballard and Steven Dring, founders of the company Growing Underground, thought it would be an ideal spot to build a hydroponic (水栽的) farm. After all, these types of farms are doing well in other indoor spaces.

Founded in 2015, Growing Underground’s farm grows microgreens and salad leaves using hydroponic technology that grows plants in water but not soil. In fact, the company said that its hydroponic technology allows for the perfect pest-free (无害虫的) growing environment.

These methods save 70 percent less water than traditional field agriculture and all the nutrients are kept within a closed circle system. They can grow the greens all year round because they are not affected by weather or growing seasons.

But it is the LED lighting system that is the key to growing food underground. Ballard said, “Already, LEDs allow the growers to change the flavor of the greens, as their sugars and starches develop differently under different light spectrums (光谱).”

Right now, the company only sells greens with a lot of leaves because they are the only crops that grow fast enough to be economically (经济地) feasible but Ballard believes that will change. “As technologies improve, you’ll see soft fruits, cucumbers, peppers,” he said.

The company’s goal is to keep food local. They say that all of the greens can be in your kitchen within four hours of being picked. They currently sell to local restaurants and people who live in London, but they hope to be entering the local retail markets soon.