Adolescent Diets Must Be Well Balanced To Keep Pace With Rapid Growth

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 36, 9 April 1948, Page 2

Adolescent Diets Must Be Well Balanced To Keep Pace With Rapid Growth

(By the Department of Health) To the child entering secondary school, there’s an open door to rapid learning and enjoyment of organised sport. It’s a period in life of great activity, and of fast growth. They can’t come quick, enough, at that age they require about a third more food than father and mother—bones are lengthening, muscles thickening and more blood is wanted. So fast is the body growing, and so much is energy being expended, that the' appetite is-voracious. It should be satisfied with protein, mineral, and vitamin foods .as well as with ample carbonhydrates for energy needs. A large plate of oatmeal porridge at breakfast, milk pudding at dinner, and bread—allow fib. —will provide adequate cereal for the day. The butter ration, and fat used in cooking the puddings, will give enough fat for energy needs. The consumption of sugar all told in the day should’nt be more than two ounces. These energy foods are rarely deficient in any New Zealand household.

Because teeth and bones are using lime heavily at this age, more milk must be taken. All told, in cooking and drinking, the adolescent should consume 1| pints a day. Because of fast growth, much protein is needed. The' full ration of meat is enough, and make sure of lvier once a week. If coupons indicate a meatless day, substitute fish, and failing this, 3ozs. of a cheese dish. Encourage cheese eating in adolescents. One egg a day is best. If you’ve no fowls of your own there’ll have to be eggless days—where the egg would have appeared, substitute a pea, bean, or lentil dish, or cheese again.

And don’t forget the sunshine for Vitamin D—encourage sunbathing, without sunburning, this summer and autumn.