MOTHERS AND CHILDREN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 2 August 1913, Page 12

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN.

(By Hygeia.;

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children.

MASTICATION

CORRESPOND__NCE

The following letters show the keen interest which parents take in tho fundamental problems we have been discussing, and also the difficulties which confront them: Letter I. As a parent I, like hundreds of others, am much indebted and grateful to "Hygeia'' for useful information. The articles on mastication are particularly instructive. Might I ask "Hygeia" to supplement the instruction by giving next Thursday a list of articles of diet which will provide mastication? With adults who concentrate their minds and are determined to masticate it is less difficult to find materials for mastication, but w-hat is there that can be given to children that will force them to masticate whether they wish or no? I have been puzzling javer the problem, with little success so far. Letter 11. I should be extremely obliged if you wi:l pobt to the above address any of your literature on the feeding of children. My child is three years old, and has so far been fed on "slops," as the doctors call soft foods and milk. We want to know your opinion upon the feeding of children of this age, and I will gladly pay for literature, etc., upon receipt of same. Letter 111. I have read with much interest the article on mastication in Saturday night's Post. For some time I have had the same ideas about so much soft food being given to children, but I find it hard to think of a diet for my boy of 20 months —that is, a diet that demands a fair amount of mastication. REPLY. The problem how to provide the modern human being with food that will ensure fulll mastication is a very difficult one. The crux of the dificulty lies, as one of our correspondents says, in bringing a child to masticate properly who has not been trained to do so irom the beginning, and who has not reached the age when the will can be involved-to bring about the chewing of food when it is not of a character which necessitates mastication prior to swallowing. Don't Miss the Golden Opportunity. If we fail to satisfy a baby's natural desire lor something hard to rnasticat. at the time when this instinct first asserts itself —say, at about six or seven months of ago, when a bone may be given to munch at, followed by hard rood a few months later— the instinct tends to die out, and there is great difficulty in re-establish-ing it; but it MUST be re-established if we wish our children to have strong, serviceable jaws and teeth, and if we wish them to escape the modern tendency to adenoids, swollen tonsils, and the chain ot other evils which follow on "pap" feeding. If the habit of merely swallowing food has been formed, not only is the instinct to chew lost, but if an effort is made to masticate properly the jaws soon become weary, and refuse to do their work completely ; In adults tho habit of proper mastication can be developed by gradually and persistently using the jaws and teeth. If this is done the task becomes less irksome day by day, and soon passes into a natural, unconscious, routine habit, no longer needing to be actuated ly the will. However, for a long time vigilance must not be relaxed, because of the tendency to fall back again into laziness and the swallowing of half-chewed food. Take Food That Needs Work. The great aid in this matter is to take at each meal a fair proportion of food that can scarcely be swallowed without a considerable amount of chewing and insalivation. It 's true that by the exercise of a strong will one can force one's self to chew a meal of soft, mushy food, but the task is much easier and the results are much better in regard to the proper pouring out of digestive juices if a fair proportion c? the food is more or less dry, and of such a texture as to offer sufficient resistance to the jaws and teeth. This is specially the case in early childhood. If all the food given is more or less soft and moist a baby cannot be trained to chew thoroughly, and the glands cannot be induced to fully insalivate such food. On the other hand, if the jaws are' properly exercised from the start by giving bones to gnaw or miinch at prior to the eruption of teeth, and if the first solid food allowed is such as requires munching—crusts, dry toast, rusks, etc. —the masticating reflex or instinct will be developed. Then even when some soft food is given in addition, this nlso will bo more, or less chewed msteau or oeihg merely gulped down as a bolus.