PHYSICAL WELFARE

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20736, 21 February 1939, Page 11

PHYSICAL WELFARE

IMPORTANCE OF NUTRITION SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS (By P.M.W.) Before we can have physical fitness by exercise we must have physical fitness by nutrition. When popular treatises on physical training first began to appear in our own civilisation —about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries—their authors, although not physiologists in the modern sense, endeavoured to provide some scientific justification for their theories. In the second half of the nineteenth century, research was made and effective results obtained in connection with the mechanism of muscular effort and the phenomena of contraction

and fatigue. Towards the end of last century, biolcuy and physiology began actually to be taken as a basis of physical recreation. The physical training which is in vogue in our schools copied a quarter of a century ago from Britain is a good example of moderate, non-competitive physical exercise. It has been recognised by the majority of health and fitness specialists who have studied the subject from the angles of biology, physiology, medicine and psychology, that the essential requisite is not to discover the best method of physical training alone, but to practice physical culture, giving it its due place in daily life, and adapting it to the physiological, economic and mental capacities of the individual. Scientific Common Sense The all-round health and fitness specialists in question hold that physical training should correspond to the requirements of age, sex and constitutional aptitude, and should be j based upon a correctly nourished i body, as well as upon the preferences : °f the individual, and the living coni' ditions and the climate of each counj try. Once the actual method of i achieving all-round physical and menJ lal fitness shall have been chosen, the I reliable scientific advisers in question counsel its use in measured doses, just as in the case of a medicine or a diet, but always with daily regularity, i The President of the Board of | Kduration in Britain, when introduc-

ing tin- second reading of the Physical Training and Receration Bill in the House of Commons in April, 1937, stated, in plain terms that physical fitness is based upon correct nutrition. "Measures for physical training.-' he said, “must run parallel with measures for correct nutrition. The on p. includes the other.” On the contrary, in New Zealand, promoters <>f physical training and recreation quite often explain to the public that “when once" the fitness campaign shall have been launched, no doubt diet will be attended to. by

whom? In the meantime, action will probably be taken in the near future to ascertain the people's requirements for playing grounds and sportsgrounds. with full details of localities, etc.: while neglect in institute large-scale inquiries into the people’s minimum requirements for nutrition, with details of ages, slate of health, etc., continues as before. ■ 1