Better Health
AN anyone by taking thought C add a cubit to his stature? The Book of Books says No. Can he add anything at all-an inch, say — upwards or outwards? The Health Department thinks that he can if he starts soon enough and attacks the problem in the right way. It certainly thinks that if he does not grow bigger and bonnier he will grow healthier and happier, and that the method and the materials are both within his reach. All he requires to do is to observe a few simple rules — to work with Nature instead of against her; and it is now telling him what these rules are. Week by week in most of the newspapers and magazines of the Dominion, and over most of the broadcasting stations, it is preaching the. gospel of better health in language that everyone can understand; but it is preaching only. If we disagree, argue, or refuse to listen, it cannot coerce us. We are a free com-munity-free to be wise, free ta be foolish, free to lengthen our lives or shorten them; but most of us are not deliberately foolish in matters of sickness and health. We do not take poison knowing that it is poison or expose ourselves to infectibns when we know how to avoid them. We enjoy being well and we like keeping safe, but it is possible to love life and yet endanger it. And when it comes to what in another sphere is called abundance of life, nearly all of us at sometime or another are negligent. If we do not deliberately try to be flat and dull, we do not take steps to remain vital and buoyant. This the Health Department can help us to do if we will accept its help. It cannot make the blind see, the old young, or the halt skip like lambs, but it can raise and reinforce physical standards without exacting a price that we feel too poor to pay. It rests with ourselves to say Yes or No.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19430813.2.8
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 216, 13 August 1943, Page 3
Word count
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341Better Health New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 216, 13 August 1943, Page 3
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.