Effects Of Fatigue On Accident Rate: Morning Meal Factor

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 14, 20 January 1948, Page 7

Effects Of Fatigue On Accident Rate: Morning Meal Factor

(By the Department of Health) Just how are you feeling right now? Fit to see the rest of the day through without becoming fagged out and irritable? If you’re not, maybe your breakfast has something to do with it. Breakfast shouldn’t be such as to make you feel bloated, but it should be ample. In the morning your body, which has been fasting for from 10 to 12 hours, needs refreshing with a supply of energy and nutrients in order to survive comfortably the very active hours of the forenoon. Without food, the body can’t deliver the needed energy. That’s why fatigue lessens efficiency and causes bad humour, two conditions directly encouraged by inadequate or improper morning meals.

A recent overseas analysis of 1,000 consecutive accidents in an industrial plant revealed that the greatest number occurred between 11 a.m. and noon. Many of the victims turned out to be folk 'who went off to work with a skimpy breakfast or no breakfast at all. A textile mill registered • many accidents about 10 o’clock in the morning, most of the victims having to come a long way to work. It transpired that many of them, in order to get to work on time, skipped breakfast. The mill began serving breakfast in its cafeteria. Forenoon accidents were almost eliminated. A child who eats a good breakfast has a better chance to do well at school. The same applies to the housewife who needs the energy to do the morning housework. There’s no hard and fast rule about' the amount to be eaten at breakfast. It depends on what the nature of the individual’s work may be. One thing is certain: going without breakfast is a bad start for the day.