NATION'S HEALTH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22792, 28 July 1937, Page 12

NATION'S HEALTH

PLUNKET WORK LOST gap from babyhood DOCTOR'S STRONG WARNING COST OF NOURISHING FOODS [by telegraph—own correspondent] HASTINGS Tuesday "I wish I could get hold of those thousands of mothers whom we helped through the early stages of infant feeding and who then proceeded to let us down with a flop in their own homes," said Dr. Martin Tweed, of Wellington, medical adviser to the New Zealand Plunket Society, at tiie biennial conference of the East Coast and Hawke's Bay provincial district at Hastings. Dr. Tweed urged that attention should be given to the lives of young people from the time they left the hands of the Plunket nursing system until they attained the age of 19 or 20 years. Digestion, Nerves and Teeth ' "There is a terrible gap in the work, roughly between the ages of three or " four years and 19 or 20 years, and it is on this gap that we must concentrate," Dr. Tweed went on. During the years of that gap futtiro ; mothers and fathers lost their diges- ' tion, their nerves, their health and- .• their teeth, and then the society had if ;.' to pick up the broken threads and ' " start all over again.

"Travellers from abroad will tell you V*;: of the enormous popularity of the 'keep . fit' movements at Home and on the -t~' Continent," said Dr. Tweed. "In this ! : /r it seems we are rather lagging behind ~/\\ in New Zealand. Our babies may be the best looked after in the world, but after all our care why do we have to ' \' have milk rations in our schools? Why do we have health camps for our undernourished school children? Why are the hospitals and mental hospitals so full ? One Great Movement Urged "We have a healthy climate and we are surrounded by unlimited quantities of milk, butter, eggs, cheese, fish, fruit and vegetables. It is the price we have to pay for these health-giving foods that turns housewives' thoughts to the cheaper diet of meat, tea and sugar and white flour. "I can see 110 hope for the future unless health and education go step by step together, when our homes, our kindergartens, schools and institutes co-operate in one great movement for the health of the people by education in health habits."