PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELFARE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 47, 25 February 1939, Page 8

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELFARE

PHYSICAL FITNESS—S

Dear, People, Even among those people who are particularly interested in phyical training for its own sake, there is but a vague notion of the causes which have succeeded in popularising physical fitness generally. Briefly, the whole thing is an offshoot from activities fostered for more than a century past and brought to the notice of the world in a somewhat sensational manner by the League of Nations. In November, 1935, the League appealed to the governments of the world to set up urgently needed national nutrition committees, in the interests of the health and fitness of the human race. A Synthetic Scheme. With a view to the establishment of true health-insurance (that is, the prevention or the earliest possible treatment of every known form of physical and mental disability), early in 1936 the League asked the governments of the world to supplement the work of their nutrition committees by setting up national housing committees, to investigate the existing deficiencies in housing. These two recommendations were, of course, at once complied with on the part of the more enlightened nations of the world. Finally, in November, 1937, the complete scheme appeared in outline by a strong appeal by the League that national committees^Also be instituted to enquire into the people’s needs in respect of physical education. The League further recommended tha; the national committees appointed to look into physical education retirements should work in conjuncwith the earlier national comon the people's need.- m nutr:and housing, and wivr'i v.rrc at |K time <1937' presumed tn iv at in each civilised country. on Physical Education. Vsince May, 1937, the League of Rat ions’ Health Committee has hac lan international group of experts ir education working inten sively on this important problem. Tc date, their unanimous findings are tc the effect that: 1. Physiological bases of rational physical education must necessarily include improved methods of bodiij measurements. 2. Physical exercise should always lx taken in moderation, should b< spread over the whole week. anc should not be competitive—the ainr being not to produce “champions, but To raise the standard of healti and fitness of the whole community 3. Physical education should b< undertaken only under mcdica supervision. 4. The relation between intellect.ua development and physical develop memt must be kept urgently ii view. 5. Most important of all, physical cdu cation cannot possibly be develope< independently, but must be carriei out in association with nutritioni.e., the consumption, assimilatioi and elimination of food, togethe with adequate rest, sleep and exer cise, fresh air and pure water. 6. As there are many aspects of th problem of physical and menta fitness—social. economic, educa tional. medical, psychological, endo crinological, recreational. voca tional, biological, physiological, etc —each co-ordinated national fitnes committee should include represen tatives of the various sciences con cerned.

The New Zealand I*ag. How far New Zealand is lagging behind the times is therefore plain to the most superficial of observers. Some three years ago. the Physical and Mental Welfare Society of New Zealand put forward a suggestion to the preliminary National Health-In-surance Committee (as well as to the Government itself) that actual prevention of ill-health must surely constitute the truest form of health-in-surance; and that the logical scientific action to be taken should include the establishment of a non-political National Health-Research Board, representative of the sciences governing positive health in both body and mind. Neither the recommendations

of the League of Nations nor of the P.M.W. Society have gained any response from the Government. The establishment of some such board is an “evolutionarjly inevitable” step; and such a board will have the synthesised knowledge which alone can determine the minimum amount of training necessary to ensure normal health, as well as the maximum amount compatible with full inteltelectual activity. Improved Measurements. It will have been noticed that the League’s international group of experts in physical education strongly recommend the adoption of improved methods of bodily measurements. This is a most interesting and provocative subject and will be dealt with at greater length in our next series of articles on “The Suicide Club.” In the meantime, it suffices to say that New Zealand is distinguished by large numbers of children (and possibly of i adults, too) who are taller-than those! of the same ages overseas, but who weigh less than might be expected, in comparison with overseas standards. Increase in height alone was long considered a fairly reliable indication of the degree of growth of the whole bone-structure. The fact is. however, that height can increase without the necessary and corresponding lateral development (see our article “Physical Fitness—4”). Bones Need Guts. If the skeleton upon which the frame of the growing child or adolescent is founded is to remain strong enough to do its work prooerly, it must show an adequate weight; it needs to work properly, it must show an adequate weight; it needs to grow in width, as well as in length. During the period in which a baby or a child is doubling the length of his bones, he ought to increase his weight by something like eight times. The area of the cross-section of each supporting bone has to increase during that period fourfold. In other words, by the time the child’s height is doubled, his bones ought to become — not twice as thick, but four times as thick. Only modern testing of the child’s real growth can be relied upon to show up any deficiencies in this respect. The True Miracle-Worker. There is a tendency on the part of numbers of people to look upon physical education as a species of automatic miracle-worker. The child | takes his regular exercise, they say, and the exercise miraculously causes his bones and his tissues to grow. The ’real state of affairs, of course, is that I moderate exercise facilitates Nature’s ' processes of assimilation and elimination of whatever foodstuffs may enter the child’s system through his mouth. It is more than obvious that all the exercises ever invented are powerless to put the necessary protein, minerals I and vitamins into the child’s innards. I Food containing adequate nutritional values alone can work the actual miracle of growth and development of mind and body, and to which physical exercise can make its important but subsidiary contribution. Yours as ever,

Conclusion next week. The same subject (Physical and Mental Welfare

True Health and Fitness) will be continued under the title of “The Suicide Club.”