Step Back in Time

Do you know that welive a lot longer now than the people who were born before us?One hundred years

ago the averagewoman lived to be 45.But now,she can live until at least 80.

One of the mainreasons for people living longer is that we know how to look after ourselvesbetter. We

know which foods aregood for us and what we have to eat to make sure our bodies get all the healthythings

they need.We knowwhy we sometimes get ill and what to do to get better again.And we know how impor-

tant it is to dolots of exercise to keep our hearts beating healthily.

But in order that wedon't slip back into bad habits,let',have a look at what life was like 100years

ago.

Families had between15 and 20 children,although many babies didn'I live long. Children suffered

from lots ofdiseases,especially rickets（佝偻病）and scurvy（坏血病）,which are both caused by bad

diets.This isbecause many families were very poor and not able to feed their children well.

Really poor familieswho lived in crowded cities like London and Manchester often sleptstanding up,

bending over a pieceof string,because there was no room for them to lie down.

People didn't havefridges until the 1920s.They kept fresh food cold by storing it on windowsills（窗台

板）,blocks ofice,or even burying it in the garden.

Some children had tostart work at the age of seven or eight to earn money for their parents.if youhad

lived 100 yearsago,you might well be selling matchsticks（火柴杆）(a job done by many children) or

working with yourdad by now.

An Englishmaninvented the fridge in the 1920s.

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned