“Taranaki Central Press” FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1937. PHYSICAL FITNESS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 415, 23 April 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1937. PHYSICAL FITNESS.

A conference has been in session in Wellington to consider the best means of running the standard of physical fitness of the nation and to recommend some course of action to the Government.

The subject falls into two divisions, one concerned with the adult and the other with the children, and the latter is by far the more important of the two.

Clearly the physical education ought to start in the schools, and since the teachers will have to teach the children, someone will have to the teachers. Within the last few years biology has been making a timid entry into the curriculum, but educationists are still very far from realising the truth that it is much the most important subject in the whole education of human beings. The necessity for teaching the teachers is very pressing. When, recently, fifteen teachers were asked if they could explain the cause of ordinary physical tiredness, not one responded, yet this is one of the simplest facts and one of the most important in life.

Of late years much attention has been concentrated on diet, but bad cooking unquestionably does more to impair the efficiency of the nation than bad choice of food.

Rheumatism, which afflicts so many people in New Zealand and which seriously affects the efficiency of' workers, is little understood. In its commonest form it can be prevented by attention to a few simple rules, of which the most important is that the skin should be kept clean and active. These matters are mentioned because it is all Lombard Street to a China orange that they will be completely ignored by the Wellington conference, which will almost certainly be thinking, as most New Zealanders do, in terms of physical exercises.

Of course, physical exercise is important, especially so now that the nation is being given increased leisure, because people who have much time on their hands invariably run to 'fat. But if the conference is to achieve any real good it will have to broaden its view to include many things other than the measurement of the national biceps.