OUR BABIES
TBT HIGEII.I Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children'. "It is wiser to put up a tence at the ■ top of a precipicu than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." FOURTH LESSON. First of all 1 should like you to tell me what the live chief needs for good health laro. , , (Get the children to repeat them, marking oil each on :i linger.) A. AIR, Breathe pure, fresh, clean, cool air by day and night. B. BATiIiNU.-l'lcnly of water for clean(J. OLOTHING.-I.oose, light, comfortable elothing-neither too mucn nor too little. D. DiET.-I'roper food, i'lam, simple food taken at regular intervals, bolid tool must be thoroughly chewed. Water should be taken after a meal, not with it. E. EXERCISE AND REST.-A . large amount of exercise in the open air ana sunshine is necessary for good health. Boys and girls, as well aa babies, need list and plenty of sound sleep. . I have already told you something about the first three—Air, Bathing, and Clothing. To-day I shall talk about Diet. DIET. Diet means the food taken daily.. This food, when properly chewed and dissolved and absorbed into the circulation, constitutes, along with the. oxygen takcu up oy the tiny blood vessels of the lungs, the blood stream which is ever flowing and nourishing every part of the body, it each of us would have a healthy body we must have clean, good blood. How can we get this? , . , /The daily food should be plain and simple, and should be taken regularly at set times. There should bo no pieces taken between meal-times. ... Three meals a day are sufficient, and it these meals are taken quite regularly and are of the right nature and quantity, the best health would be attained if all the other need's for health-A, B, 0, ?nd Ewere aiso attended to. Before being swallowed, tho food, taken should be well chewed and mixed with the fluid, named Saliva, which (lows into tho mouth' when we eat food. It is a great mistake to eat much soft, mushy food, which simply slips down without being chewed and mixed with saliva. Hard, tough, dry foods, such as crusts, toast, oatcake, brown bread, hard plain Bbip's biscuits, etc., are very good, because they givo plenty of work to the gums and teeth, and this work makes them grow better and stronger. A certain amount of meat, fish, or egg is beneficial, and fresh vegetables are most wholesome and necessary. Fresh fruits, particularly good ripe apples, are excellent, especially at the close of a meal, because they leave the teeth clean. Cakes, sweet biscuits, sweets, and chocolates are not good foods. They do not make good, rich blood nor build up strong bodies. Such sticky foods tend to lodge m the crevices of the teeth and make them decay. Bad teeth cause most of the rains, illhealth, and disease from which we sufler. •TEETH. Tho care of tho teeth is therefore most important, and the following rules should be carefuily observed:— (1) Tho (eeth should bo brushed, regularly night and rooming; not merely across, but up and down, outside and inside. Specially brush the tack teeth. (2) Food must be well chewed in order to give the mouth, gums, and teeth plenty of work to do, and thus help to make and keep them strong and healthy. (3) Plain, simple food, taken regularly, Is best for tho teeth. Sweets, cakes, and 6oft "pap" food should bo avoided, especially the last thing at night. An uncooked ripe apple is good for the teeth, because it leaves them olean. • (4) Ask your parents to send you to a dentist twice a year to see that yonr teeth are all right. (5) Remember that the teeth arc made from the blood, and that there cannot be good, rich blood unless tho teeth are used properly and vigorously for tho work they aro intended to do. In the Boer war 3000 British soldiers were sent back to England from Africa as useless on account of decayed teeth. In the Busso-Japaneso war all, the Japanese soldiers took their tooth-brushes with them. Large numbers of young men in New Zealand havp been rejected as not fit to be soldiers on account of the badness of their teeth. WATER AND OTHER FLUIDS.. Water should be included in food, because it forms a large portion of all the food we eat. For instance, some vegetables, such as cucumber aud vegetable marrow, consist almost entirely of water.
Water, as a drink, may be taken at the end of a meal after all the "solid" food has been well .chewed, thoroughly mixed with'saliva, and swallowed. You remember I told you that the saliva begins to flow into the mouth whenever we cat food ■-indeed, it often flows into the mouth when we see anything we should like to eat; when this happens we sneak cf "the mouth watering." Pure saliva is needed to help in the dissolving of our food, and if we weaken it with water It cannot do its work properly. Therefore, don't get into the bnd habit of taking a drink after every few monthfuls of. food. Tea and coflee are not good for children. Milk should not he looked upon as a drink. It is really a food, and contains half as much solid material as an equal weight of beef-steak. Conclusion. Heals should never be taken hastily; plenty of time is needed. Don't spend your pennies on sweets. If you want something to eat, good fruit is ever so much better.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180209.2.16
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 122, 9 February 1918, Page 5
Word count
Tapeke kupu
936OUR BABIES Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 122, 9 February 1918, Page 5
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.