HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1920, Page 6

HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

(Puhli-diod under authority of Kducation Department.) Tt is commonly assumed that fruit is itn unnecessary adjunct to the diet. On the contrary it is an important food, and it may he generally said that a child wJio.se daily diet does not include u certain amount of fruit is not being adequately fed. Th'e value of acid fruit in cleaning the teeth after meals and counteracting decay alone would give fruil mi important place in our list of>. foods, lint there are other ways in which fruit contributes to health.

Fruit is rich in certain riiamines or elements of nutrition which are essential to health and bodily growth. Insufficiency of certain vitamiuea is frequently a serious fault in the. diet of children, consisting as it often does almost wholly of artificially refined foods. The fresh juice of oranges and lemons has saved battalions of troops from contracting that dread disease, scurvy.

Fruit has a. stimulating—one might almost say a disinfecting—power Upon (he digestive tract. It helps to prevent stagnation, to promote normal activity of the digestive organs, and to maintain the lining membrane in a healthy condition. It is becoming increasingly recognised in the treatment of certain diseases of children that to restore the digestive lining of the stomach and bowels to a healthy state it is essential (o include in the diet, a proportion of food requiring vigorous mastication and a certain amount of fresh raw food such as fruit.

Li all cases ol artificially £cd infanta, it is important to give a little orange or apple juice daily, commencing with about 10 drops any time after the first monili and increasing very gradually. At Hi is age it should he given in the interval between meals. Aftei a year old a little baked apple may be given at the end of a meal, and at IS months the average child should gradually learn to nibble a little raw apple. Unless there is some reason to the contrary, a small piece of raw apple or orange should be given at the end of each moa!, and this should be a general rule from two years onwards. In the case of oranges the juice only should be taken, The reason why stone fruits such as plums sometimes cause digestive trouble is that they arc often eaten with their skins unwashed. As such fruit offers a great attraction to flies it is frequently in a very unclean conditions. It should invariably be washed, and for young children the skin should be peeled oil'.

The most generally useful fruit is the apple. A greater demand would result in cheaper apples, and judiciously used they would effect an enormous reduction in dental disease and an incalculable increase in health. There are scientific mounds for dm old adasc "An apple a da - >:ce|>< the doctor away "