Health, Nutrition And Useful Exercise

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 15

Health, Nutrition And Useful Exercise

SOME HINTS FOR GOOD LIVING SIMPLE RULES BY DR. GUNN “ Correct nutrition cannot begin) early enough. Ante-natal diet must I contain an excess of the protective food plus plenty of sunshine —practically the only free vitamin—and New Zealand has plenty of it,” said Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, Director of School Hygiene, in an address to the Manawatu Women’s Club yesterday afternoon. Even in New Zealand, cod liver oil for its vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin) should be given to all growing children during the winter, she continued, but she criticised what she feared was the much too common presentday diet of working adolescents, a room, a tray and on that tray some fruit, if they had provided it themselves, and then some toast, butter, marmalade and tea. All workers should start the day with a good breakfast, a good cereal with plenty of milk; then to follow what was better than the once general egg and bacon with toast, marmalade, butter and coffee. Two many following that tray breakfast had a sandwich or two for lunch and tea to follow. Sandwiches with half to one pint of milk for lunch after a good breakfast, then with a good dinner of meat, vegetables, and sweets to follow was necessary. “Forget your diet,” said Dr. Gunn. “To 3 many people are food conscious.” There were so many patents advertised, and it paid to advertise —it must. One had only to travel. She had to, to see the number of people who brought to the hotel table some special patent food—or extra vitamin—or anti-acids. They went carefully through the menu, and talked all the time of the virtues of their patent, but she had never seen one who had made her feel envious, or one who had made her inclined to give up her normal mixed diet. A mixed diet contained ail the essentials for life—its proteins, it carbohydrates, its starches, fats, and vitamins, minerals, etc. So she ate that mixed diet and did not worry and advised all to do the same.

Dr. Gunn caused much amusement by saying that she agreed with the professor of the John Hopkins University who described the vegetarian diet as one which filled one up with wind and self-righteousness, and said many of the patient diets did the same tiling. That tired feeling, said the speaker, was not due to excessive work but many were fired and irritable for want of food.

“Ask yourselves if you have had your necessary supply of protective food for tho day —and if not, why not? Have something five or six times a day—a little and often,” she asserted. She had proved it in her health camps after the first two, and in those she was hard and believed that three meals a day with nothing in between web correct, but, said Dr. Gunn, found that when children and the staff were given food, perhaps six times a day, they improved tremendously. Good health was the most precious thing in. life, easy to attain and most people were .born healthy, and health enabled one to do the things most desired. Physical defects hindered growth, so she advised all to take means to have such defects attended to as soon as they were noticed. In this connej tion a plea for attention to be paid to the reports of school medical officers was made.

Fresh air was necessary to health—it was almost the only free thing in this would—and just as necessary at night as in the day, continued the speaker. The temperature of a room should be between 60 and 65 degrees—overheating produced nose and throat trouble and laid one open to catching the common cold. Sleep was nature’s restorer —a man could live longer without food than without sleep. Some authorities declared that the reason that many brilliant children were never heard of in adult life, was that their immature brain tissues were exhausted during their growing period. Progress in the promotion of health, and physical education in the schools was being made along several main lines of, advance. Physical education implied health, and health implied the conditions that made for health, said Dr. Gunn. One of the essentials of health education was to reinforce the lessons of a good home upbringing by maintaining this methodical way of life in the schools.

Schools were helping in many ways. They were trying to ensure that undernourishment should not be due, as it partly was, to ignorance. They aimed at sending out no girl from school without the knowledge of simple cookery, housekeeping and the qualities and values of food. They were taught that all parts of the human body had to have regular use if their fullest energy was to be maintained, aud this applied to the brain as well as to the muscles and joints, concluded the speaker.