TALKS ABOUT FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 85, 10 April 1926, Page 8

TALKS ABOUT FOOD

NEW RULES FOR THE TUCK

SHOP

DO SCHOOLBOYS OVEREAT?

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 26th February.

"Can a boy eat too much?" This question was propounded.and answered by Dr. L. E. Lempriere, 0.H.E., Resident Medical Officer at Haileybury College, in a lecturj at the Institute of Hygiene on "School Diet." "Th answer," he said, "depends upon the amount of exercise. At homo—yes. At school—no."

Letters are written by parents, who complain that their sons and daughters are not given sufficient to eat at board-ing-school, that they return home looking thin, and that food parcels from outside are banned.

Dr. Lempriere said there were two schools of thought—(l) that boys and girls are.underfed (mainly represented by parents); and (2) that they are overfed or wrongly fed (represented by not a few medical men, physiologists, dietetic experts* and food reformers).

"As a school medical officer I believe that a healthy boy's heart cannot be damaged by over-strain. Similarly, I believe that»a healthy boy's stomach is qually tolerant and accommodating. Loss of weight in the winter and Eastern terms is due to coming back too fat or to illness. "Whatever the time of year, • I am never satisfied if a young boy fails to gain weight. When I look back on tho bread-and-butter breakfast and tea, and bread-and-cheese-and-beer supper, and the monotonous, solid dinner of my own school days of 40 years ago, the improvement has been very great, and this is, I think, particularly true of the girls' schools, whose diet sheets are better than the boys'.

THE ESSENTIALS. "Food may be inadequate for two reasons—quantity at- quality. From the energy point of view there are five main items—meat, bread, milk, sugar, and butter, which should be fundamental, and whose amounts are essential. In my opinion, 9oz meat, lOoz bread, 2J oz sugar, lioz butter, and f-pint of milk a day should be the minimum allowance; this represents about 2300 units a day. The- necessity for fruit has hardly leaked into public schools as a fundamental, and here, then, we have a just and definite criti~i-:. There should be three compulsory meals a day, at intervals, of about five hours. A fixed minimum of 20 minutes :hould be allowed for breakfast ana tea, and for dinner 30 minutes. At breakfast, porridge made up of proper oatmeal should be given three times a week in summer and four at least in winter. There should always be an extra dish— bacon, fish, egg, or sausage. At tea there should be an extra dish. Two, days a week, there should be meat alternatives at dinner—e.g., soup, with a good boiled pudding* and fruit, or rise fish, and on both these days meat might be given at tea.

JAM-POT JOYS. "Extra food is not necessary, but is, on the whole, expedient. None of us are too old, I hope, to forget the great joy of personal property, the private pot of jam, the study teas or brews, with-eggs and sausages, etc. I would lay down the following restrictions: That no food should be brought into the school without the housemasters' leave; that tea should be the only meal at which extras may be allowed; that no food should be bought except at the school tuck shop; that these tuck shops should be run by the school for the school only; that fruit should always be on sale, and that tinned and potted meats and fieh pastes should not be allowed; that the shops should be open in the afternoon only; that the amount of money allowed.to a boy should be restricted. The parents are often to blame in allowing the boy too much pocket money and in sending him too much extra food,"

"A DIETETIC CRIME." Dr. Lempriero declared that it is a dietetic ; crime to serve the same dish on the same day of the week. "It is sometimes better to sacrifice some nutrition to avoid monotony, and not to give even the good popular dish too often, for boys' appettites are often capricious and wayward. It is not impossible that some of the faddiness, which is more noticeable among the younger boys, is due to the prevalent small families, with the inevitable spoiling of an only son. The solution with the younger boy is not to allow, f ddiness or let him refuse his victuals, and the passing,of any dish should mean an examination by the school doctor, with castor oil in the background. One hour should elapse between meals and football and runs, but in 25 years I have been looking for and have not found any ill-effects from boys indulging in other forms of exercise after half an hour interval. See and hear, year in and year out, as I have, boys ragging and playing the fool directly after meals, and you would realise that interi_ittent exercise, such as fives,.squash, gymnastics, cricket nets, tennis, etc., are not harmful After half an hour interval."

THE GROWING GIRL. Another medical authority, this time a lady—Dr. Elizabeth Sloan Chesser — had something to say about food in her address, "The Problems of the School Girl," at Carnegie House, on the same afternoon. The lecture was one of a series of six arranged by Viscountess Erleigh in aid of the National Society of Day Nurseries on various" aspects of. child psychology.

"A growing girl needs to be satisfled intellectually and emotionally, and to have a physical outlet," continued Dr. Sloan Chesser. Adolescence from sixteen to eighteen was the time of ideals which should not be repressed. The power cf suggestion was great. It was useless to teil the average girl to read a good book, but put it in her way and discuss an interesting point in her presence, and she would read ii of her own accord. Children passed through many phases. There was the phase of fantasy when they lived in a world of imagination, natural if it did not assume undue proportions. Gradually reality must be faced. Too long day dreams made the.Peter Pans and Mary Roses. Children were often considered stupid when really their eyesight or hearing was defective. "Every child should be examined thoroughly every year," she said, "and I would go so far as to say that teeth should be Xrayed annually. There is no reason why people should not have their teeth until they are fifty or sixty."

MILK PUDDINGS AND EGGS. A rigtft diet was essential. A child's distaste for certain foods was often based on a physiological fact. Modern science had proved the hated in ilk pucldinw to be a most unsuitable article of diet for a child.

"Children like to eat suet puddings with jam, treacle, or fruit, and they detest rice puddings. In that detestation the child is quite correct. Rice is artificially whitcnedj and there is n excess of starch, while the milk in '.owiib that is used is not pure, and the sugar is given in the wrong form. . Some children cannot cat eggs, and here again thero is a sound reason. They are ultra-sensitivo to eggs; just as some people are to silk—which causes rashes on their skin—or to horseaair, which, with some people, can produce

asthma when they sleep on. a horsehair bed instead of a feather mattress."

Dr. Sloan Chesser urged the importtance of teaching girls house-wifery, and how to cook and serve palatable food. .There was a wrong attitude to domestic work. A girl should bo trained to be economically independent. If the domestic arts were raised to a higher level it would help to solve the problem of unemployment. At present women were causing overcrowding i men's work! If this w<is relieved it.would go far to solving post-war problems. '' The great saint and the great sinner Ere very closely allied, and people of weak emotional temperament have never achieved very much. The most ardent and fine type of girl is the "most likely to make a mess of her life."