PHYSICAL FITNESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 69, 18 February 1939, Page 10

PHYSICAL FITNESS.

National Fitness Week must arouse tlie keen interest of every citizen. It arises from a wholehearted desire to. build a healthy nation, and should be a useful means of stimulating interest in the work of the National Council of Physical Fitness, to whom the Government has entrusted the task. In the cities and provincial centres the local authorities have actively prepared for the week by arranging sports demonstrations and other means by which the physical fitness of youth can be demonstrated. The public are now invited to show their interest in the movement, within which there is room for every citizen active in mind and body. It has been well said that in this country too many people watch sport from the sideline. Not everyone can participate in a vigorous pastime such as Itugby football, but there are other ways in which a person can make himself physically fit and keep in good trim. In her last annual report the Director of School Hygiene emphasised that all children are not able to take part in vigorous games and exercises, and the question had been raised as to whether the schools were not spending too much time in training their teams and leaving the remainder on the sidelines to “barrack.” The relevancy of that problem to others must be apparent, but it is not insurmountable, and Physical Fitness Week has been so organised as to show the way in which such difficulties may be overcome with resultant benefit, to the individual. For a nation to build the health of its people on soundest lines the movement must start in the schools and continue afterwards. Too often do young- people on leaving school forsake the healthful pursuits they learned there. This tendency must be corrected by enlisting youth into the movement on entering the workaday world. The National Council of Physical Fitness has a great service to perform, and to attain success must have earnest public support. . Britain and other Empire countries have realised the great need of the time to raise the standard of physical fitness and social well-being, and the campaign in England is prospering. The totalitarian States boast of what they have achieved in this direction, but no one wishes to see their methods adopted in British countries. Good citizenship can be attained by other means, but the public must do their part.