WOMEN'S CORNER

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17607, 9 November 1922, Page 3

WOMEN'S CORNER

(CONTINUED PBOM PAGE 2.) WRONG FEEDING. MORE VEGETABLES AND TEWEB SWEETS. "Some of the most serious errors in our present habits of living are the excessive frequency of eating and the excessive consumption of sugar, sweete, and confectionery. In both those, errors New Zealanders are outstanding," said Dr. Wilkins, IMrector of the Revision of School Hygiene, in a leo- - at Wellington this week. Associated with these habits, he continued, was frequent tea drinking. Five, six, or even seven meals in the day were also quite common. The frequent eating, excessive consumption of arti-ficially-flavoured confectionery j and incessant craving for stimulant was an evil of much greater significance than lay in its mere bearing on health. It was an example of the self-indulgence and artificial luxury which history warns has always preceded the downfall of empires in the past. It wa3 imperatively necessary that children should be trained to take not more than three regular meals in the day and no food in between, and that these meals should consist of plain, wholesome food, not refined, preserved, and artificial products. More wheatmeal bread maae from the whole wheat grain and not merely from an artificially separated and refined portion of it was needed. Raw fruit should be eaten regularly, not as a luxury, but as an important and essential item in the diet. As a preventive of dental disease especially, it was urgently necessary that the rule of finishing each meal with some raw fruit should be widely adopted. Less meat and more vegetables should be taken; vegetables were a very neglected article of diet, especially in country homes, where one nvght exnpct them to be grown plentifully. Tne special value of green vegetables must be realised, and, generally speaking more vegetables snould be prou'n in the house garden. The cultivation of the soil was the fundamental industrv of the human race. I f this idea were kept in view and worked out in practice to a greater extent in the cities some, at any rate, of the evils associated with city life would be abated.