DISASTROUS HABIT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 4

DISASTROUS HABIT

Lord Harewood on Slimming

The Earl of Harewood, in a message to the annual congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health aud the Institute of Hygiene, which opened at Harrogate recently, discussed the possible relationship between the modern girl's craze for slimming and the increase of tuberculosis among young women, states the “Daily Telegraph.” Lord Harewood, owing to the illness of the Princess Royal, was unable to attend the congress, but his presidential address was read by Mr. A. Seymour Harding, general secretary of the Institute of Hygiene.

On tuberculosis, Lord Harewood wrote: “Here we have a disease which is definitely on the downward trend except, so I understand, in the young women of tlie community.

“Whether the disastrous habit of slimming, which appears to meau dedepriving oneself of a proper food supply, has anything to do with the increase of tuberculosis among young women I do not know, but there would certainly seem to be some factor at work undermining their resistance to this disease.” He emphasised the great improvement in public health during the last half-century, in spite of the dense aggregation of population in large industrial towns aud in spite of unemployment and slums. He paid a tribute to the contribution of the voluntary health society. Following on this, the “Daily Telegraph’s medical correspondent writes: It is perhaps doubtful whether there is any definite association between slimming and the development of pulmonary tuberculosis. But most doctors will be in full agreement with Lord Ha re wood’s warning.

It is quite common, and probably a safeguard of nature against the future, for a certain amount of plumpness to become manifest in young women between the ages of 18 and 25. Nature usually adjusts this later on. No otherwise healthy young woman ought to engage In any artificial measures for reducing weight other than by partaking of plenty of regular and active exercise. The dangers to health, especially the nervous system, far outweigh any possible advantages that ought accrue.