Nutrition Expert Sees Danger In Butter

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30146, 1 June 1963, Page 10

Nutrition Expert Sees Danger In Butter

New Zealand should switch part of its butter production to cheese, because overseas consumers were rejecting butter as too fattening, Dr. J Mayer, professor of nutrition at the Harvard University School of Public Health, said in Christchurch yesterday Dr. Mayer is a member of the advisory committee on Butrition to the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science.

“1 understand you New Zealanders are worried about your butter sales." said Dr Mayer. “You may well be worried. Your position is likely to get much worse as more and more persons round the world realise the danger? of butter-eating.

“Wives who want to keep their husbands alive—and I guess that’s most of them—know that there is apparently a close relit onship between fat intake and heart-disease especially tn middle-aged men Many Do Net Buy “In the United States. we have mountains of butter. It is niling up and piling up because many just won’t buy ft any more The same kind of thing is likely to happen In other places as the word gets round. "Cheese is a much better long-term sales prospect, as it contains plenty of proteins and calcium and other useful dietary ingredients There is a ’remendou. shortage of proteins in many countries The world needs New Zealand’s cheese much more than New Zealand's butter."

Dr. Mayer, who is a specialist in children’s nutrition (he is a consultant in nutrition to the Children’s Hospital in Boston), said many children were overfait because they did not take enough exercise Research in his department at Harvard indicated very strongly that appetite was "a meter which works only within a certain range of activity.” and that this was especially true as regards children and adolescents. “In the cave-age, when food supply was seasonal, it was probably useful to carry large reserves with you, but in these days it is better to keep them at the supermarket round the earner If you could keep fat reserves round the outside of /our body like a whale, the results might not be too disastrous, bu* there is an unfortunate tendency for thq fa’ to infiltrate the heart and other organs.” Where a child was overweight, it was necessary to attempt some reduction by cutting down his food supply perhaps, but. better by making him exercise more. The type of exercise was immaterial, except that it should be something he liked doing Great care should be taken not to harass the child, as this could be self-defeating The over-weight child was often self-conscious, withdrawn and inactive because of his over-weight, and tactless handling could drive him further into his shell.

Anniversary.—The Country Library Service began to isstfe books 25 years ago today.— (PA.)