"REAL HEALTH."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 127, 31 May 1937, Page 11

"REAL HEALTH."

PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

NUTRITIONAL FITNESS. WHAT MALNUTRITION MEANS. (By SILEXT PETER.) "Real health means real happiness," loclared a member of the British Pariament, during a recent debate in the louse of Commons on the second reaclng of the Physical Training and Recreation Bill. The ultimate conclusion irrived at by the House was that not iny nation may attain physical fitness jy exercise before achieving first of all ihysical fitness by nutrition. The delate disclosed universal misunderstandng of the term "malnutrition." The New Zealand measure for the j sstablishment of physical education jentres has been postponed until the 1938 session of Parliament. In the meantime douTrtlpas our Parliamentary representatives will prime themselves with a few elementary facts regarding nutrition, so that in the Dominion-wide discussion that will inevitably be I aroused some of the ludicrous mistakes perpetrated by British Ministers and members may be avoided. In India, whose present yield of foodstuffs is sufficient for the feeding of only two-thirds of her population, it may be that a large proportion of the malnutrition existing ir. that great empire includes actual lack of food. In Xew Zealand, however, the undoubted

malnutrition that lies at the' root of much of our national ill-health is not caused so much by under-feeding as by wrong feeding. To a large extent a similar state of affairs obtains in Britain, yet the majority of the Ministers and members taking part in the recent debate on physical training based their remarks upon the untenable ground that "nutrition" is synonymous with "filling the stomach." In reply to the contention of a member that not any child is able to derive benefit from a course of physical education while suffering from malnutrition, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education made the remarkable statement that a pennyworth of bread, biscuits and cocoa would repair all the wastage occasioned. by two sessions of physical exercise. Science Wanted Here. In view or the fact that the species of "food" mentioned (even when obtainable cheaply) would provide an almost negligible quantity of secondrate protein and carbohydrates, with practically a total omission of minerals | and vitamins, further aggravated by certain substances which would tend, not to strengthen the body, but to rob it of calcium, the need for an intensive course of nutritional education in high places would appear to outweigh the avowed urgency for a national and individual programme of physical education. l«,ot any nation is so superior in knowledge that it can afford to miss an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of its friends, and New Zealand is hereby presented with the opportunity of avoiding a repetition of a similar tragi-comic situation. In the debate referred to, it was pointed out that the individuals to be I subjected to physical education . measures do not live and move and have their being in a vacuum, unaffected by [their economic and'social environment.

It was made clear that the public health aspect of physical education would concern the Ministry of Health; that its occupational and industrial problems would be the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour, because nutrition depends largely upon food, and food depends largely upon wages; further, that the Ministry of Education would be involved, with its school medical inspection and "its. school feeding; and this again (so far as milk is concerned) would bring in the Ministry of Agiiculture. One may also include- the Ministry of Scientific and Industrial Research, for the simple reason that a great deal of existing malnutrition (and consequent inability to benefit by physical education) is caused by mineral and vitamin deficiencies in the soil. Soil deficiency arises largely from forestdestruction, and the Forestry Department would therefore be involved in this national and universal problem. Scientist versus Doctor. Health (or ill-health) is no longer the responsibility solely of the medical man, and modern medical scientists are the first to acknowledge this truth. One hopes that before the 1938 session of Parliament arrives, New Zealand statesmen will at any rate have progressed to the extent of agreeing upon the initial starting point of the necessity for scientific guidance. The British Physical Training Advisory Council comprises 31 members, of whom two only are scientists. When the time comes New Zealand should be able to better this performance by about 80 or 90 per cent.