How do we get more young people to increase their consumption of iron-rich foods? Many nutritionists are advocating the fortification of a number of foods. This may help, but I contend that we should also intensify our efforts in nutrition education among our young people. I simply do not buy the argument that it is futile to try to change eating habits. Once an intelligent person—and this includes adolescents—understands the need for a healthy diet, I think he or she will act accordingly. As for specific actions, I suggest that blood hemoglobin should be checked as a routine part of a youngster's yearly physical checkup. It should contain at least 11 grams per 100 milliliters of blood for a girl and at least 12 grams for a boy. If it is any lower, the physician probably will prescribe an easily absorbed iron supplement.
Adolescents—and everyone else—should cut out highly processed foods and drinks, which may be low in iron and other nutrients. Read the labels for iron content. Especially make sure that all bakery products are made with enriched flour or whole grains. Try adding liver, chicken, beef, veal or any other variety to the weekly menu.
Finally, even when you are trying to lose weight, always eat a sensible, well-balanced diet made up of a variety of fresh or very lightly processed foods. In this way, you stand a good chance of getting not only enough iron, but also adequate amounts of all the other essential nutrients.
The author recommends that young people ______.
A. check blood hemoglobin yearly
B. be on a strictly vegetarian diet
C. lose weight
D. do some more studies on hemoglobin
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In the 1960s, medical researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a check- list of stressful events. They appreciated the tricky point that any major change can be stressful. Negative events like "serious illness of a family member" were high on the list, but so were some positive life-changing events, like marriage. When you take the HolmesRahe test you must remember that the score does not reflect how you deal with stress—it only shows how much you have to deal with. And we now know that the way you handle these events dramatically affects your chances of staying healthy.
By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had followed Holmes and Rahe. And millions of Americans who work and live under stress worried over the reports. Somehow, the research got boiled down to a memorable message. Women's magazines ran headlines like "Stress causes illness!" "If you want to stay physically and mentally healthy," the articles said, "avoid stressful events."
But such simplistic advice is impossible to follow. Even if stressful events are dangerous many—like the death of a loved one—are impossible to avoid. Moreover, any warning to avoid all stressful events is a prescription for staying away from opportunities as well as trouble. Since any change can be stressful, a person who wanted to be completely free of stress would never marry, have a child, take a new job or move.
The notion that all stress makes you sick also ignores a lot of what we know about people. It assumes we're all vulnerable and passive in the face of adversity. But what about human initiative and creativity? Many come through periods of stress with more physical and mental vigor than they had before. We also know that a long time without change or challenge can lead to boredom, and physical and mental strain.
The result of Holmes-Rahe's medical research tells us ______.
A. the way you handle major events may cause stress
B. what should be done to avoid stress
C. what kind of event would cause stress
D. how to cope with sudden changes in life
When young people who want to be journalists ask me what subject they should study after leaving school, I tell them: "Anything except journalism or media studies."
Most veterans of my trade would say the same. It is practical advice. For obvious reasons, newspaper editors like to employ people who can bring something other than a knowledge of the media to the party that we call our work.
On The Daily Telegraph, for example, the editor of London Spy is a theologian by academic training. The obituaries editor is a philosopher. The editor of our student magazine, Juice, studied physics. As for myself, I read history, ancient and modern, at the taxpayer's expense.
I am not sure what Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, would make of all this. If I understand him correctly, he would think that the public money spent on teaching this huge range of disciplines to the staff of The Daily Telegraph was pretty much wasted. The only academic course of which he would wholeheartedly approve in the list above would be physics -- but then again, he would probably think it a terrible Waste that Simon Hogg chose to edit Juice instead of designing aero planes or building nuclear reactors. By that, he seems to mean that everything taught at the public expense should have a direct, practical application that will benefit society and the economy.
It is extremely alarming that the man in charge of Britain's education system should think in this narrowminded, half-witted way. The truth, of course, is that all academic disciplines benefit society and the economy, whether in a direct and obvious way or not. They teach students to think -- to process information and to distinguish between what is important and unimportant, true and untrue. Above all, a country in which academic research and intelligent ideas are allowed to flourish is clearly a much more interesting, stimulating and enjoyable place than one without "ornaments", in which money and usefulness are all that count.
Mr. Clarke certainly has a point when he says that much of what is taught in Britain's universities is useless. But it is useless for a far more serious reason than that it lacks any obvious economic utility. As the extraordinarily high drop-out rate testifies, it is useless because it fails the first test of university teaching--that it should stimulate the interest of those being taught. When students themselves think that their courses are a waste of time and money, then a waste they are.
The answer is not to cut off state funding for the humanities. It is to offer short, no-nonsense vocational courses to those who want to learn a trade, and reserve university places for those who want to pursue an academic discipline. By this means, a great deal of wasted money could be saved and all students--the academic and the not-so-academic—would benefit. What Mr. Clarke seems to be proposing instead is an act of cultural vandalism that would rob Britain of all claim to be called a civilized country.
The second paragraph is meant to demonstrate that ______.
A. students of other disciplines than journalism are preferred employees of newspapers
B. young people should learn other subjects than journalism after leaving school.
C. veterans of the author's trade would give the same advice to puzzled youngsters
D. young people should diversify their learning subjects to be better employed
When the author says that we should intensify our efforts in nutrition education among our
A. should force young people to eat well-balanced meals
B. should tell young people to eat liver, chicken, beef or veal
C. should teach adolescents about nutrition in home economics class
D. should try to change eating habits to get enough iron and other essential nutrients
There seems never to have been a civilization without toys, but when and how they developed is unknown. They probably came about just to give children something to do.
In the ancient world, as is today, most boys played with some kinds of toys and most girls with others. In societies where social roles are rigidly determined, boys pattern their play after the activities of their fathers and girls after the tasks of their mothers. This is true because boys and girls are being prepared, even in play, to step into the roles and responsibilities of the adult world.
What is remarkable about the history of toys is not so much how they changed over the centuries but how much they have remained the same. The changes have been mostly in terms of craftsmanship, mechanics, and technology. It is the universality of toys with regard to their development in all parts of the world and their persistence to the present that is amazing. In Egypt, the Americas, China, Japan and among the Arctic peoples, generally the same kinds of toys appeared. Variations depended on local customs and ways of life because toys imitate their surroundings. Nearly every civilization had dolls, little weapons, toy soldiers, tiny animals and vehicles.
Because toys can be generally regarded as a kind of art form, they have not been subject to technological leaps that characterize inventions for adult use. The progress from the wheel to the oxcart to the automobile is a direct line of ascent. The progress from a rattle used by a baby in 3000 BC to one used by an infant today, however, is not characterized by inventiveness. Each rattle is the product of the artistic tastes of the times and subject to the limitations of available materials.
The reason why the toys most boys play with are different from those that girls play with is that ______.
A. their social roles are rigidly determined
B. most boys would like to follow their fathers' professions
C. boys like to play with their fathers while girls with their mothers
D. they like challenging activities