KEEPING FIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 154, 28 December 1936, Page 13

KEEPING FIT

NEED OF DISCIPLINE

A DOCTOR'S ADVICE

Ministers announce that we must now set about becoming a fitter nation, writes the medical expert of the "Daily Mail." But it will be a colossal task to make England more healthy. Our small island is highly industrialised. Many people, by the circumstances of their work, are forced to adopt an indoor life. Much of our air is polluted. We do not yet grow enough food to ensure that every family. shall get the fresh meat and vegetables it needs. Can the job be done? Undoubtedly it can. But only if the problem is seen as a whole. And only if the people are prepared to pay for it, in other ways than in money. Will they be willing to accept a "dictatorship" of the doctors and other experts? Look for a moment at the extraordinary patchwork of our present health regulations. We are free to go about spreading certain ailments, such as tuberculosis"; But" we are obliged under penalty to notify, small-pox and scarlet fever., A diphtheria carrier, known to be such, may sit in a school infecting twenty other children; and its parents will get into trouble if they keep it at home. INCONSISTENT ON TEETH. We examine, the eyes of children at school, but we have no . regulations which will' ensure that the school itself is properly lighted so as to avoid eye-strain. ; t We examine and extract children's teeth, but take no measures to ensure that they eat the amount .of calcium which will .allow teeth to develop soundly arid [strongly. We are, in short, fot ever shutting the^dopr,,after the horse of fitness has been stolen., t ' .. . , . . ~_. Tb tn'atfaet 'our crowded hospitals, perpetually begging for funds, bear sufficient witness. But.if we.want to be fit we must.be prepared \o accepVsome discipline 111 Bur livens and to 'extend the present system of medical supervision. ; ~.,„.. ;. ,i •■?.*,; v« Tne • first fhing "is T6_ encourage, fry every means known io propaganda experts, the general realisation that health is not a gift, like an ear for music. It is a privilege, like a university degree. People must train for it, and must be prepared to pass strict tests which will show whether or not they deserve to have it. Propaganda, then, to start with, to get this notion of necessary discipline into the heads of Britons. FRESH FOODS. Next, the ensuring of a constant supply of various fresh foods; milk, butter, meat, and fruit. Supervision of methods of distribution —Australians are shocked by our butchers' shops open to the street. Americans by our handling of unwrapped bread. A closer watch upon milk supplies; at present a certain amount of mjlk from tuberculous cows slips through despite the regulations. Are children taught food-values? Are they taught even elementary cooking, or what happens to this or that substance when it gets inside? If an army marches on its stomach, an industrial population works on its stomach. And what indignities that long-suffering miracle of patience still puts up with! But all this is for the future. What about the men and women of the present moment? What can the ordinary citizen, man or woman, do to keep or to become fit?.He, at present, must be his own disciplinarian. VALUE OF WALKING. He can look to his eating habits, for one thing. There is an old and sane saying: By forty a man is either a fool or his own physician. That is, he must by then have got to know what disagrees with him in the way of food, drink, and exertion; avoid it if he can or else take the consequences. Daily he must insist upon undertaking that one exercise which is free and open to all of us—walking. He must look, or get other people to look, to his eyes, teeth, and feet. Bad teeth are a more common cause of indigestion even than bad cooking. Sometimes they harbour actual poison. They must be fitted to do their work. : Tight shoes, which discourage walking, and throw the body into wrong positions,, are as great a danger nowadays as tight lacing was to our grandmothers. Eyes deserve the best care'they can get; the best light, the best glasses. They are a cause of other things than headaches —nervous indigestion, fainting, irritability. These three causes of trouble, with diet the most important of all, are at this moment within the power of most of us to deal with—if we will put up with the restraint, expense, and constant watchfulness involved. Are we ready to undertake such a discipline? Are we prepared to regard health as a goal to be worked for, not a right to be abused? It is a fact that a nation can have fitness if it is prepared to pay the price, not only in money but in training of the body and mind. ; Are we willing to pay?