SWEEP AND GROW SLIM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21987, 23 June 1933, Page 15

SWEEP AND GROW SLIM

Many of the simplest everyday actions, carried out with energy and deliberation, can be just as effective as set exercises (says Evelyn Laye iu the News-Chron-icle). , In these days many women cannot afford such adequate domestic assistance that they can give up household tasks altogether. It i« well for our figures that we don’t. When lam working I am out of ray flat all day, and the tasks of the house fall to my maid, but when opportunity arises I never fail to take a spell at sweeping, bedmaking, and so on. Next time you have any such work to do notice as you go the muscles you are healthily employing, and you will find that most of those which slimming exercises are designed to strengthen come naturally into play. If you are sweeping with a broom or an electric cleaner whenever possible use it rhythmically, standing erect and with the feet well apart. , . \n excellent exercise is sweeping a carpet with a dustpan and brush. Don t kneel down, but walk across the floor without bnding your knees, holding the pan and brush before you, and bending down from the waist. If it is too much of a strain at first don t do it for too long, but even a minute or two of this is helpful. , ... „ Another good way to sweep with a dustpan, which reproduces exactly one of the best-known physical exercises tor slimming, is to work across a floor this way; —'fake a crouching position with both knees well bent, but with one foot in advance of the other. Keeping your crouching position, move forward one leg at a time as you brush in front of you. The movement is really a milder form of one used in Cossack dances. Incidentally, it is the quckest way that there is of covering a floor with a dustpan. When you make a bed, the stoopiug. and stretching involved are invaluable, if you work swiftly and with vigour, and remember to bend from the waist and not merely from the shoulders. In going about the house never fall into the temptation to “ slouch. Household tasks are far more thung and back-aching if they are performed slackly and with the muscles relaxed instead of being braced for their work. Even such simple matters as going up and down stairs or drawing a pair of curtains can be made exhilarating if they are performed with the spine well erect and shoulders squared.

In drawing curtains, for instance, grasp them as high up as you can reach, and this will help to offset the effects of stooping over other jobs. Some stooping is inevitable in housework, but a great deal of it can be avoided if you devote a little thought to the level at which you place your cooking utensils, wash basins, etc. Architects are beginning to take this point into consideration, but until bouses are built ideally women have to work out for themselves how they can save their figures from the rounded backs and spreading hips that come from long periods of bending over a low sink or table.