A HEALTH CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1926, Page 10

A HEALTH CAMPAIGN

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT 3

EDUCATION IN COMMON-SENSE HYGIENE

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY.

For some hundreds of years elderly persons have been dinning it into the ears of grandsons and granddaughters that "Early to bed and early to rise . . . " — everyone has had that dinned into his mind so often that the missing words are easy —and up to a certain point there is a great deal in it. It is a fine thing to persuade youngsters away to bed, say about 7 o'clock, and until civilisation became so hopelessly involved it was a firstrate working rule for adults, more or less complete in itself, as ideas o£ health and happiness then were. But to-day life is more complex, more straining upon mind and body, and one simple rule, which in any case did not go far enough, does not meet the case. Even so the main rules which make for sound health are not so very many. Most of them have been impressed upon most people at some time or another, but most people forget some of them sometimes. The purpose of Health Week, to be held early next month, is to polish up those rules and to make some more suggestions. In short, Health Week is an educational week in the interests of the better health and happiness of the individual and of the community. Wellington has had two such campaigns, the first in 1922 and the second in 1923, several' factors going against the holding of campaigns in 1924 and last year. The 1922 Health Week was quite successful, but it was a beginning and as such a smallish movement. The second covered a great deal more ground, and, though, it might be difficult to point to concrete instances, probably did a good deal for Wellington. This year the Health Week Committees are setting a,way with past efforts and results to guide them, and are confident that, even more so than in 1923, they will have the willing co-operation of all citizens. Without co-operation the campaign can be no campaign at all, but there are no great fears on that ground. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY. These educational weeks are an English idea, the first of them being instituted in various towns at Home in 1912. By 1920 it was estimated that over 100 centres in England celebrated Health Week, and the next year the number went up to 250. From English newspapers to-day one gathers that estimates have been given up, and that, the idea has been taken up by every city and centre of size. America also adopted the idea, and New Zealand and Australia tried out the plan in the same year, 1922. By no means can Health Week be described as a craze of the moment; it is a sound common-sense movement which has arisen, and spread rapidly because it is recognised, not only by the medical men and the civic authorities, but by commonsenge people, that, great as has been the improvement in national health during the past generation, chiefly owing to the achievements_ of sanitary science, advance on existing lines is reaching its limits, and for any fresh general advance to take place new methods are necessary. These methods demand a sense of personal responsibility on the part of the general public as well as work by sanitary authorities. ■ "Responsibility" has a heavy sound about it, but there the fact is that the individual must always be responsible for his health, he can do a lot more for himself by standing clear of trouble than his medical man can by curing him of it, and Health Week is no more than a cheerful enough movement which will help him stand.clear, and, doing so, will benefit the community as well as the individual.