NUTRITION

Hokitika Guardian, 2 April 1932, Page 6

NUTRITION

ITS RELATION TO HEALTH

(Contributed by the Department of Health.

All men are agreed that ’nutrition is the basis ol individual and national health. “Twenty years ago” states Sir George Newman in a recent report; “I drew attention in my' annual report to the Board of Education, Eng-, land on tlie liedlth of school children to the fact that human nutrition connoted a complex rather than a simple condition of things. It is true that for the nourishment of the body there food, but that is not enough. There must indeed be sufficiency and the suitability of food is even more vital—a proper proportion of nutrients, protein fat, eaT|oliyjlrate, vitamin and mineral constituents. Yet over and above this, other factors must receive attention. For example, regard must be paid (a) to times and seasons for food, to its cookery i).nd preparation, to its appropriate adaptation to age

and sex, to its cost and availability to the social and domestic environment of the consumer; (b) to the relation beverages to s°lid food (e) to tlie growth, repair, energy and heat requirements of the individual body, which means in praetic an intimate relation to age, habit, leisure and occupation—an infant, a school child, an adolescent, a. sedentary clerk, a trained athlete, a labouring navvy—for they need different dietaries, and the suitability and value of their diet is effected by fresh air and bodily exercise, by. activity, and bodily rest; and above all (d) to the physiological .condition of the body—tlie physiological processes of mastication, digestion, absolution, assimilation metabolism and excretion.

The complexity of the causes of malnutrition was illustrated in a careful inquiry made info 885 malnourished children in London in 1913, the year before the war. It was found that in 43 per cent of the children tlie poverty of their parents or guardians was the principal cause of thencondition—a poverty which represented shortage of . money, lack of home c are, sleeplessness, ignorance or neglect. The second dominant factor was physical impairment, tuberculosi (19 per cent.) recent illness- (16 per cent.) and dental disease (12 per cent), speaking generally, the r malnutrition of the school child, in this coimti-v has declined in a single generation from approximately 10 per cent, to nearer 1 per cent, and that remarkable change lias open due to the medical care of the child, to the supplementary feeding at school, and to far-reaching social improvement and higher wage in the home. It is interesting to observe that somewhat comparable amelioration lias been taking ■ qilate‘'among' r 'the ' adult’ • population. Tilth Army canteens during the win the industrial canteens in factories, the improved dietaries in hospitals, sanatoria, and poor law institutions : The enormous development of the catering trade and the manufacture ol prepared foods, the ever widening public medical services, an increased wage—all these have contributed sub stantially to the improved nutrition of the people in recent years. Their whole dietary has undergone reform —food, fruit, fish, meat and dairy products .are brought from far distant sources transported under new methods of ..refrigeration, canning and packing, and -betterment in quality has accomplished increase in quantity. Yet notwithstanding these aclvaiu.es the nutrition of tlie people leaves much to be desired. There is still much apathy and ignorance in _ the choice of foods, often associated with deplorable inaptitude in cookery. Our scientific knowledge of food markids. overseas and at home, combined with expeditious transport, have brought to our tables the practicability of securing a dietary beyond the dreams of our forefathers, attractive and nutritious, but we do not use it sufficiently or wisely. We continue many old bad habits in regard to meals which we permit to become monotonous and stale, ‘badly cooked, unappetizing, untidily served. Many hungry consumers bolt their food ■ or wash it down with tea or beer, forgetting that such a custom is unfair to the food, the tea, the beer, and body. Some persons no doubt are un-der-fed, but many are over-fed —giving their poor bodies little rest, clogging them with yet more food, and disregarding the imperative necessity t° health and appetite of a thoroughly cleansed alimentary tract. It is n ,; t too much to say that our national capacity for work and output is impaired by unsatisfactory nutrition, it is not exaggerated to say that some of our commonest diseases are directly due to deficiency, or excess ol certain food constituents. F'or instance, rickets, dental decay, anaemia, tuberculosis, and goitre, perhaps even Tiroiieiiitis anil infectious disea-os. are oft eii due, directly or imlire: t!y. D> 1 spine particular ,d< licieiiry, again di~ ribiTes, gastric,'nicer, appendicitis, colitis, lumbago.’ ‘■rheumatism.” are often closely associated with some particular excess in dietary or ordinary lack of i are of the digestive organs. once more, children ami pregnant women are all to niton unwisely or unsuitably led lor their require* incuts. These are three examples which illustrate the observation of Professor E. I*. Cat heart. F.H.S., that “We do not suffer so much in this country from the inability to obtain food a s inability from one cause or another to ul ’ise to tlie best ndvaiilt.ure sui li foods as are available. "The adequate nutrition of the child

-food, exercise, rest, fresh air, personal habit—is one of the primary functions of the home, to he stipule* nu'iitcd where necessary by the school and by the advice and counsel of visiting doctors and nurses of the several public medical services. The appropriate nutrition of the adult, and particularly of the pregnant woman, is largely a matter of the common sense of the well-informed individual. There is no royal road to national and sound nutrition. Thcv aie the elfort of experience in wholesome living 1 1 \- individuals. There is a science and art of life as there is a science and art of medicine, or law. or eneiiieering. We must learn the facts, the h'now 1 dge. the .science of lile. and bring our art and practice to aetoi'd therewith.