HEALTH NOTES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 377, 11 June 1928, Page 13

HEALTH NOTES

FOOD RULES NURTURE OF THE BODY (Contributed by the Department of Health.) Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer to the Board of Education and to the Ministry of Health, England and Wales, in a lecture, discusses as follows important aspects of preventive medicine. The fundamental problem of health, he says, is the wise and scientific nurture of the body. The elements of nutrition for the body are six in number: Food, fresh air and sunlight, exercise of the body, warmth, cleanliness, and rest. If they are withheld or inadequate we shall assuredly have insufficiency, poor physique, disease, and even premature death. Let us consider for a moment the most important of these six, food. The products of digestion enter the blood from the alimentary canal, and thus all parts of the body are nourished. It is of vital iriportantce to eat the food which will build, repair, warm, and energise the body. Ignorance of a sensible dietary is the direct cause of much preventable disease, and more people suffer from eating too much than too little. It should contain some proteins, such as occur in meat, fish, milk, bread, cheese, eggs, peas, beans, lentils: some fats, as in cream, butter, suet, lard, dripping, olive oil, etc.; some carbohydrate, as in sugar, bread, potatoes, rice, and starchy foods. The body also needs mineral salts (calcium, iodine, magnesium, sodium, and potassium), contained in milk, cheese, eggs, green vegetables, and fruit, the last two furnishing a considerable bulk of fibrous material valuable in stimulating alimentary movement. Lastly, there are certain substances essential for growth and nutrition known as vitamins, present in extremely minute quantity in various foods.

Several principal kinds of vitamins are recognised, and are called vitamins A, B, C, D, etc. Vitamin A, found especially in milk, butter, cheese, yolk of eggs, and green vegetables, is necessary for growth and the maintenance of body resistance against infective disease. Vitamin B, found mainly in cereals, pulses, and yeast, is also necessary for growth and for the maintenance of nervous stability. Vitamin C, found in various fruits and leaves, but especially in lettuce, cabbage, and oranges, is effective in the prevention of scurvy. Vitamin D occurs richly in cod-liver oil, oily fishes (such as herrings), and egg-yolk; it is concerned in the proper development of bone and teeth, and its absence may lead to rickets. Goitre may follow insufficiency of intake of iodine, as stunted growth may result from poorness of proteins or excessive or unbalanced cereais (which should always be associated with milk, eggs, and green vegetables). It should be remembered that the vitamins exercise joint and interdependent action and may be destroyed by overcooking. A plentiful supply of sunlight to the skin will make up for certain deficiencies. In addition to these various requirements of living protoplasm we must, add water. The transmission of all nutritive substances to parts of the body is done by “water transport.” So, too, excretion of waste.

Dried foodstuffs, preserved vegetables, proprietary foods, over-cooked foods, and tinned meats, though possessing some practical advantages, are reduced in value as foods. Fixed foods become auxiliary only, for they are deprived in some measure of their vital elements of appetitie, of taste and disposition, and of variety of composition. Moreover, nutrition does not consist only of pabulum, the food. There must he healthy activity of those physiological processes which have to do with mastication and preparation, with absorption and assimilation, metabolism and excretion. Healthy and complete nutrition is infinitely more comprehensive than mere feeding, mere filling of the stomach. Now, when we turn to the dietetic conditions of the great mass of the workers we find a tale of ham and beef, of beer and bread, of tea and pickles, of tinned meat and proprietary foods, or a weary round of bacon and herring, and cheese —and of an unstable digestive system and an impaired physique. But variety, mixture, appetising cookery, freshly-pre-pared or natural food, the healthy conditions of sound digestion—these are the essential things so often ignored.

Finally, there are some food rules ■which it is expedient to adopt: (a) Strict and persistent moderation in diet tends to longevity, and excess tends to early mortality: (b) nature has provided that food should be masticated, should reach the stomach slowly, and not too frequently; (c) the number of meals taken daily is a matter of individual practice and custom, but for persons over 40 years of age they are usually too frequent: (d) no food should be taken between such regular meals, as eating promiscuously gives the body no rest: -(-e) there should be no active exercise immediately after a meal.