The Health Gap

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 163, 28 July 1937, Page 7

The Health Gap

YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN Diets That Undo Plunket Foundations TEA AND FRIED STEAK "I wish that I could get hoia of thoge thousands of mothers whom we helped through the early stages of ini'ant f eeding and who then proceeded to let us down with a flop in their own Uomes," saad Er. kfartin Tweed, of Wellington, medical adviser to the New Zealand Plunket Society, at the biou»i{il conference of the !East Coast aaa Hawke's Bay provincial district at Hastings yesterday. Br. Tweed urged that attention should be given to the lives of young people from the tuue they left the hands of the Plunket nursing system till they attained the age of 19 or 20 years. The society "does splendid work through the nursea and the work of the fente-natal Bection, which actually gets the expectant mother, and- later the baby, flt and well," he said. "But there is a terrible gap in the work, roughly between the age of the child of three and four years and the men and women of 19 and 20 years. It is on this gap that we, the Society for the Health of Women and Children, must eoncentrate." He went on to say that durdng the years of the gap the future mothers and fathers lost their digestion, nerves, health and teeth. Then the society had to pick up the broken threads and start fcU over again. "The health of the father is just as important as the health of the mother," he said. "After all, both of them aro helpless babes at ono stage of their lives. We watch our babies' diet most carefully, expose thein to the life forces of fresh air and sunshine, and tone their muscles with cold sponges, but.as they grow up their digestions go to pieces on a diet of tea and fried steak; they are shut away from light and sun and fresh air, and eOid snongcs are few and far between, " . Filling the Gap.

Dr. Tweed urged that the society should eoncentrate • on filling thp gap. The Government and the health officers and authorities were f ocussing their attention in this direction through pucix organisations as the kindergarten and other organisations, and he though^ the society should offer every assistance and co-operation so that there would be a continuity of attention and service. "The Plunket children are open-air children; they are healthy animals," continued Dr. Tweed. "But we take them and shut them up in schools. We are informed by authorities overseas tliat it is illegal to keep children shutup for taiore than half a day. After all these children are out-door grown, not hothouse plants. When will we in New Zealand have all our infant schools open-air I "Travellers from abroad will tell you of the^pnormoug popularity of the 'keep lit' inovements at Home and on the Gontinent. In this it seems we are rather ldgging behind in New Zealand," he said. "Our babies may be the best looked-after in the world, but after all our.care why do we have to have a milk « rations in our schools? Why do we have health camps for our under-noiirished school children? Why are our hospitals and mental hospitals so fullf We havo a healthy climate, and we are surrounded by unlimited quantities of milk, butter, eggs, ckeese, fish, fruit and vegetables. "It is the price we havo to pay for these health-giving foods tliat turns the housewife 's thoughts to the cheaper diet of meat, tea and sughr, and white fiour. I can see no hope for the future unless health and education go step by step together; when our homes, our kindergartens, schools and institutes co-operate in one great movement for the health of the people by education in health habits from the cradle to the grave."

Centenaiy Health Movement? Dr. Tweed mentioned that in Wellington it was contemplated spending over half a million pounds for providing facilities for the sick. An even greater sum was t'o be spent at Auckland, yet, he contended, a very great deal more good could be accomplished if, say, £1,000,000 were spent bn tho prevention of disease. Instead oi health camps for sick and needy children there should be camps for healthy children. "I would like to see a great outdoor health movement sweep New Zealand, and public demonstration of outdoor exercising and dancing at our centonary oxhibition in 1940 porformed by our men and women and boys and girla clad in tunies with bare arms and legs and feet, brown at berries, and glowing with health' and fitness," he said. "Somo day it may be that our Doininion will be peopled with men, women and children as fifc and brown and strong as the early Maoris or the ancient Greoks. ' ' Quite apart i'roni the fact that we appear to be a country without a reiigioix— without the deep and satisl'ying foundation of religioua faith, discipline and training— would not a proper pridc in our physical and mental health and well-being act as a check on our decreasing birthrhte, our high mAternal mortaiity, and our growing evil of criminal abortiou?" he Askod. "Would that our children could bo taught ihe art of simple, good, hodltliy, Clean living, and that padh child holds in, him or hersolf tho seeret of it. The rock on which our teaohings are founded is Nature's own teaching, and the uniformity of om4 teaching gnards our wovk from ^Iritfing into endless paths of dissension and discussion."