Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-03-01
MALNUTRITION'S CAUSES
Bv H. Addington Bruce
TIN HERE are numerous people who eat
sufficient food so far as quantity is

TN HERE are numerous people who eat
sufficient food so far as quantity is
concerned yet are poorly nourished.
The trouble is that they do not so select food
stuffs as to include all the elements needed
for the bodys support.
Many err by too vigorously limiting their
diet to meats and starchy foods They eat
perhaps an overa abundance of these, particu-
larly bread and potatoes while scarcely
touching other foods-such as fruits, green
vegetables and milk-containing the vitamins
and inorganic salts even more essential to
nutrition than the proteins and carbohydrates
Unfortunately consumed.
This is perhaps the commonest of dietetic
errors Common also is the mistake of eat
ing too freely Of fried stuffs, sweets salt,
spices and other condiments.
And malnutritiOn may be harmfully az
fected by personal habits not directly con-
cerned with food at all.
The widespread habit Of working and
sleeping in rooms not ventilated as they
ought to be is potent factor in causing NAL
nutrition. When the body has an undersup-
ply of oxygen there is necessarily a disturb
ance of the physiological and chemical proc
esses by which nutrition is carried on.
For the same reason failure to exercise
adequately may have malnutrition as a re-
suit Failure to exercise also promotes NAL
nutrition because of its i'll effects the va
rious organs by which waste food products are
eliminated.
injurious to nutrition. This because of the
fatigue it creates, fatigue from any cause
being highly anti-nutritive. Which means,
of course that those who work too hard, play
too hard, sleep too little may suffer NAL
nutrition, no matter how careful they are in
their choice of foods.
Also, if only because Of the fatigue it may
occasion, faulty posture is an often unsus-
pected cause of malnutrition. AS Fritz Tai
bot has pointed out:
Improper posture adds a great deal to
the fatigue of the body. The strain inherent
in poor bodily mechanics causes extra mus
cular work. When the abdomen becomes
very much sagged it results in poor assimf-
lation of the food, and as result poor pos
ture in many instances is responsible for mall
nutrition.
$50 that by merely correcting the posture
malnutrition can very often be much i'm
proved and sometimes cured, where other
things are normal"
Eyestrain, through reflex action on the
digestion, may be exciting cause of wal
nutrition. So may tooth decay, by making
proper mastication of food difficult and also
by absorption of poisonous products from the
decayed teeth.
Likewise, especially in the case of chill
dren, enlarged tonsils and adenoid growths
must be accounted factors in maInutrition
These act both by impeding the breathing
and by pus absorption from the tonsils,
which, when enlarged, are usually the seats
of bacterial Infection
FINALLY, poor housing is frequently an ac-
cessofy TO malnutr1t1on. Those whose homes
are dark and gloomy are at a grave disad-
vantage SO far as nutrition is concerned. For
sunlight is almost as essential to good nutri-
ton as is fresh air.
copyright, 1921, by the Associated Newsna-
pers.)