Monotonous Diet Blamed For British Athletes’ Defeats

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 August 1948, Page 5

Monotonous Diet Blamed For British Athletes’ Defeats

(N.Z.P.A.—Special Correspondent.) Recd. 7.10 p.m. London, Aug. 16. In a letter to “The Tinies,” Sir Adolphe Abrahams, eminent consulting physician, who has been closely connected with the training and preparation of British teams for the last six Olympic Gaines, says he detected in this year’s representatives, in striking contrast to their predecessors, an apathy and lack of enthusiasm. Sir Adolphe says he considers the war and its consequences can be blamed for some of these deficiencies to a not inconsiderable extent. “I think the dietitians have erred through over - simplification,” he says. “Mere nutrition, that is to say, calorie value and adequate vitamins,, is not the whole of the matter. The monotony, the comparatively uninteresting and unpalatable must have an effect upon a high-ly-strung athlete who expects in his training variety and liberality, with freedom from any such preoccupations as food rationing has imposed.”