FITTER NATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23011, 12 April 1938, Page 16

FITTER NATION

CAMPAIGN NEEDED FUTURE OF POPULATION training' of young people SPORT AND PROPER DIET Reference to the challenge to the community provided by figures indicating a declining birth rate was made by Mr. D. 31. Rae, principal of the Auckland Teachers' Training College, in an address to the Auckland Rotary Club yesterday. Speaking on "Physical Fitness and its Relation to Population," Mr. Rae said the present serious position was a challenge to the older members of the community to take a lead in providing for the future, by ensuring tho physical fitness of the young people. /{ . "We must firmly seize upon the important fact that our future depends not so much upon the birth rate as upon those men and women who can be challenged to live fully and efiectively for the longest possible period of years, ** said Mr. Rae. "Can wo prevent in any way the appalling health wastage that is going on among our people to-day, so that our hospitals are full and we are forced to spend almost £10,000,000 per annum on hospitals, invalidity pensions, sustenance and other remedial social palliatives? Reliable figures show that many childv ren entering our schools at the age of nve have. the seeds of disease that •>ij mark them as potential unfits. We have here the first real check to our effective future, population." - School Lunches The vastness of the problem of diet and its connection with the health of the children was only now being realised, he added. There was need for another Truby Kin" to carry on the work where the Plunket system finished. Systematic diet had to be carried right into the stages of _ late adolescence. Only recently had it been realised that it was nationally worth while to supply free milk to_ the children. Great neglect of the dietetic requirements of the "children was often shown in the making up of children's lunches and the inappropriate food bought by children with their lunch money. "We have not yet realised as a people the tremendous importance of Fresh air, exercise and recreation," said the speaker. "If we look at our contemporary world we find a tremendous interest being taken in physical education a/\d in recreation." Examples in Europe In many European countries to-day, Mr. Rae continued, people had begun to realise that there must be a challenge to youth to make the most of their bodies. The schools were equipped with gymnasia and playing fields and, moreover, there "ft'as a public attitude which realised that for tomorrow's safety they must get rid of physical illiteracy. All would not necessarily be in sympathy with the militaristic bias which coloured some of the movements abroad, but the definite ...results, achieved had to be admired. New Zealand would have to find a moral equivalent for war in order to challenge its youth to a greater degree of interest in physical' development. It was to be 'found in a- campaign for physical fitness enthusiastically supported bv the public. . "Any analysis of this city's facilities for sport and recreation would reveal that there are thousands of our young people who are wasting their leisure time," he said. There was great need for gymnasia in schools and for ample equipment to carry out effectively the physical Education of tho iften and women of to-morrow.