Coddling.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1, 5 January 1907, Page 49

Coddling.

Many people take too much “care of themselves,” they think so much about their health or their ill health that they make themselves ill through sheer mental concentration and worry. Continual thought about any organ will influence the state of that part of the body, as Christian scientists know very well. “I simply can’t eat cold meat,” the man who has allowed his stomach to get the upper hand of him will plaintively assert, and be seems rather proud of the fact that his organ of digestion is of a more fastidious and delicate

order than the common or garden stomach of ordinary humanity. The truth is that he has trained his stomach badly, he lias accustomed it to “loaf,” has permitted it to get into a condition of semi-invalidism by pure pamper-

ing. "It is the easiest thing in the world,” said a medical man of my acquaintance, “to cultivate a fastidious stomach. If you habitually feed yourself upon slops, semi digested food, or only certain types of food, your stomach will accustom itself>to your requirements. It goes ‘on strike' because it discovers it does not require to work. “Half the people who declare they cannot eat this, that, or the other thing, would be much healthier and happier if they were simply made to take the ordinary diet of everyday life and did not bother their heads whether their food agreed with them or not. ’ OVERFEEDING. Some people coddle themselves by overfeeding. They think that the more they eat the healthier they will become, they tell you that they mean to “take care of themselves.” So they take little exercise and much food. Don’t think that if you rest and eat and eat and rest you will grow strong. You will only grow fat, fat and flabby. The invalid habit is the simplest thing to acquire and the most difficult to get rid of. The woman who thinks she is interesting if she is physically delicate, who enjoys her ailments, is often perfectly strong and healthy in the first instance. “I never recovered from that severe attack of influenza.” she will tell you with no little pride, and ill-health to such a woman is a luxury she could not hear to forgo. Many an “invalid” tied to a sofa for years has suddenly recovered health and strength and happiness by being forced by financial difficulties to bestir herself for her family. A CHRONIC SORE THROAT is Nature’s punishment to the person who perpetually coddles his throat. The man who will not venture out of

doors in winter without a muffler, the woman who wraps herself to the ears in a fur, only make their throats more sensitive to cold and more liable to illness. “Me all face,” said the Indian who was asked if he was not afraid of catching cold without- clothes, and it is certainly true that we can accustom our bodies to cold, and can harden ourselves against catching chills. But the more we coddle ourselves by

overclothing, by sitting over fires, by staying indoors because it happens to be wet or cold, the more certainly shall we contract a cold when we venture out of doors. What causes half the eolds in winter? Overcoats. We hurry along In a heavy overcoat and arrive at church or theatre or eon-cert-hall in a steaming condition and throw off the coat because we are no longer in the open air.

Then we get a ehill, and not one man in fifty does the right thing—namely, carry his coat to church and put it on inside when he is sitting still.