NEW ZEALANDERS SLOUCH

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 259, 29 July 1937, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDERS SLOUCH

Only Remedy for Poor Deportment Lies in Simple, Easy Exercises and Reasoned Diet

(By

A. Jenkins.)

WOMEN seem to think that if they have a handsome profile and a pretty frock, they can get along very well, with the help of some powder and paint. A poised and graceful figure does not count with them so much. Perhaps they are right, too, but in my opinion there is nothing so fine to see as a trim and balanced figure. Carriage and poise make for personality, give assurance and an immediate dignity. If only people realised that, they would more readily give their bodies proper attention.

GO far as New Zealand women at M least are concerned, deportment and poise is virtually a lost quality. Women are even less what I cal! “body-conscious,” than men. The results can be seen for themselves.

Take up a stand at any window that looks down upon a busy street. Notice how the passers-by carry themselves, and I will defy you to pick more than two out of every 10 who are anywhere near “right” in the way they stand or walk.

It is the same on beaches. It is difficult to find a girl who looks really well in bathing costume. Most should never have wasted their money buying costumes which they wear with such poor effect. The girl with trim>waist and legs is a rare and delightful sight, but too often marred by the marks of garters on the thighs. Garters, sometimes the forerunners of varicose veins, are seemingly still popular with women.

Even when girls are taking part in so-called healthy games, it is seldom that they pay attention to deportment. In basketball, they slouch on the field or move with a stiff and ungraceful action. During the game they are constantly bending to catch the ball, and they wait for it in a bent position. At tennis, the women come off the court utterly exhausted, with shoulders slumped, chin forward and back bent. They are so tired that they are in no condition to attend to deportment. Games Played Properly. TT is not that I disapprove of games. A Play them by all means. But if you do, see that you do not look upon a weekly or even a daily game as adequate exercise. Do not allow the body to slump into an ugly posture immediately play is finished. Be conscious of deportment until easy, healthy carriage is as natural to you as breathing. Si>ort is undoubtedly valuable in building up and strengthening the muscles. But sport performed by a lax and unready body can be actually harmful. The remedy for the present bad deportment and general posture of New Zealanders, incidentally for certain forms of minor ill-health, does not lie in the spasmodic, violent exertion of games. The remedy, I am convinced, is 50 per cent, diet and 50 per cent, exercise and calisthenics. People, on the whole, eat the wrong combinations of food, and too much. Some of the recipes that are sent over the air and printed in women’s publications cannot be to the benefit of the public. They are too weird a concoction of all sorts of ingredients. Light meals, with variety to keep the system toned, are ideal, provided common sense is used in selecting them. A small breakfast—fruit, milk, per-

haps flsh or egg—a lunch of salad and a moderate dinner of meat and vegetables. That is what I generally eat and what keeps me in perfect knick. No Drill to Music. A S to exercises, I am a firm believer in the value of correct marching, in rhythm and balance. We have all seen pictures of the women of Eastern countries who carry urns or pitchers on their heads. Note how straight and firm is the back, how erect the carriage. That is what we, too, should aim to have. In my classes I find that the women when thev first come to me cannot walk properly at all. They waddle. But when they have learnt how to walk balancing a book upon their heads they soon develop better habits. Gradually it becomes natural to them. I am against marching to music, however, or exercises to music. In music you have a set rhythm—it teaches that certainly—but there is no variation. You know exactly what is coming, so that the exercise soon becomes monotonous. You simply fall into it. The great thing is to vary the timing: that holds the concentration. For the same reason I do not advocate early morning exercises. If people do them honestly they give good results; but who does? What happens is this: You decide to give 15 minutes to morning exercises, promising yourself to get up earlier for them. But when morning comes you stay in bed longer than you planned, leaving only 10 minutes for exercise. Then, as you carry out the movements, you have one eye on the clock and one on the exercises. To do real good, exercises must be done with a whole mind: therefore choose. to do them when you have time and inclination; when you are at leisure, with nothing to distract the attention. The only way to attain poise of body Is to strive consciously for it So much of our daily life involves bending and moving in cramped attitudes. The sole remedy is corrective exercises, carried out intelligently with a proper and pleasant regulation of the diet. Of course a man can talk himself black in the face and no audience win take any notice unless he can first convince them of the tremendous possibilities of healthy carriage. People must learn to be ashamed of stooping shoulders, sunk chests and bent knees. They are features that should be unknown to the hale and healthy. Remember this: New Zealanders have deplorable posture and carriage because they do not think about their bodies. Let the sight of slouching crowds always remind you to hold the head high and the shoulders square.