AIR AND SUN

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 147, 18 March 1931, Page 8

AIR AND SUN

Plea for Health Camps WORLD-WIDE MOVE Address to Rotarians A strong plea that the children of the Dominion should be allowed to avail themselves of nature’s free gifts of sunlight and fresh air was made by Dr. Montgomery Spencer In an address at the Rotary Club yesterday. Last year, he said, 7 per cent, of the school children in New Zealand had been classed as suffering from malnutrition. The 17,000 children in the cities of the Dominion do not see enough of the open fields, fresh air and sunshine. The best method of combating malnutrition was through educating people on food values and how to cook without losing valuable elements in the food. A widespread movement had set in throughout the world to build up a better manhood through life in the open. Camps were dotted all over the United States, where the schools and the universities closed for three months in midsummer. Eighty per cent, of American children attended these camps. Many of these camps were privately run, and as much as 500 dollars was charged for each child, but less pretentious camps were conducted bv the Y.M.O.A .and the Camp Fire Girls. Outdoor tramping had become a eraze in Germany, where 4000 trampers’ huts had been erected. When the German war machine broke down the German authorities said, “Well, if our youth are not allowed to march they shall walk.” He had recently visited Germany, and it had been a great sight to see 14,000 students setting out from Munich University at mid-day on Saturday to spend the week-end tramping in the woods and on the mountains. “Can we not do something to make health camps in this Dominion more popular?” asked Dr, Spencer. A great deal had been done at the camps run by the Health Department under Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, and health camps had also been conducted for children at Hamilton, Christchurch, Napier, Auckland and Dunedin. There was a, site for a health camp at Otaki, which only required funds to make it ready for city children.

“It only needs public interest to get the movement going in the Dominion,” concluded Dr. Spencer; “the Press is behind it, and we have only to urge the authorities to move.”