Health Notes

Hutt News, Volume 16, Issue 39, 24 March 1943, Page 6

Health Notes

The Average man (or woman) ha'a no desire to shine as an athletic star. The chances are very much against him doing so anyway, but nearly everyone at some time or other wants to be just ordinarily strong and well. Strong enough to perform the every day tasks, and well enough to enjoy doing so. This is not too much to ask or to expect, but very few appear to realise" that there is very much in common in the athletes training to perform some strenuous task and the methods the man in the street must employ to fit him for the activities involved in earning a living and getting some enjoyment out of his life. The only real difference is one of dosage. The athlete needsi large doses of his particular physical efforts to fit him to reach the top of the class, whereas, the man in the street requires only moderate doses of the same kind of medicine to attain hia ends. Fundamentally, the methods are identical, but as we say, the dosage varies.

Physical exercise is the prescription used by the athlete. Nothing else can be substituted for the job in hand which may be the Olympic mile, a boxing championship, or a tenni'a international and the same prescription applies exactly in the same way even if it is only needed to fit a man (or woman) to tend a factory machine or to perform the household chores and other everyday activities of the ordinary man. Unlike the athlete who strives for an abnormal physical state, the ordinary man does not have to concentrate all his energies on exercising his muscles to make them strong enough to perform his every day tasks. They develop naturally for him as a result of the activities of his youth or during the period of learning a trade, nevertheless, his muscles as well as those of the athlete must be used regularly and frequently, or they will deteriorate. And deteriorate they generally do. At fifty or thereabouts the rippling muscles of earlier years have been displaced by bulges of fat. The waisitline measurement, which normally should be approximately only three fourths that of the chest measurement, gets bigger and bigger unt 111 it may even exceed that of the chest. When this happens it is time

to sit up and take notice. Life insurance tables reveal the fact that every inch of waistline mea surement in excess of the chest measurement reduces the expectancy of life by nearly 10%. This means that if your chest is one inch smaller than of your waistline you rob yourself of six good years when you pass beyond at the age of sixty. If, however, your waistline is four inches larger than your chest, the chances are that you will live only six years for every ten you might live otherwise. And don't forget the insurance companies are not amateur punters. Certainly they make bets against you living to a certain age, but they pay large salaries to actuar ies whose business it is to furnish all the information required concerning you and the rest of us. The actuaries don't theorise. Their figures are based on solid factsi, facts or tips that don't go astray.

Now, just before getting into bed tonight, try the tape around your waist and chest.