The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-22
Home Nursing
Growing OId GracefuIly
,7,s1 UFUWIMB UEU WEWCoIUEAy OTHER, dear, why should you @@V worry, even if you can no

Growing Old Gracefully
 IIMM OTHER, dear, why should you 6@IVN worry, even if you can no longer eat fried pork chops and steak an donions without suffering afterward," said the mother of four grown sons, trifle impatiently.
 'It's something, after all, to have lived to be past seventy with scarcely a sick day in your life to look back upon, and every prospect of living to be a hundred and able to enjoy every minute of it." she added, quickly, lest the poor old lady's feelings be in- jured.
 well, it doesn't seem right-that 1 can't eat what other folks eat without paying for it by lying awake half the night with indigestion" said the wO- man of seventy-two, irritibly, adjusting her lace cap indignantly and walking across the room so briskly that the blue-eyed kitten dashed for cover.
 Our family has always been so healthy" she insisted, taking up a moving picture magazine and settling herself near. the window. She scorned the use of glasses and regarded every thing that hinted at advancing years with resentment.
 "Of course. That's why you are so wei lnow, mother, even if you can't eat lobster at bedtime any more," said her daughter, scanning tn eplace where the knee should have been in her second sons stockings and reaching for a alarming needle.
 II just can't eat properly any more. That's what annoys me" continued Grandmother Lewis. Perhaps I need a tonic wit ha lot of iron in it," she added, hopefully. Nothing like iron to improve yourapp etite."
 You must remember, mother" said her daughter, "that you are no longer as active as you were when you were younger. You were running up and downstairs and i nand out from the kitchen to the chicken house and the granary and the barn, and up to the attic, and out to the fields with lunch for the hired men, and doing all the washing and ironing and mending and baking for a family of eight. That was activity, and, of course, you could eat anything then, because your body needed all the energy manufacturing food for it could get.
 But it's different now. You are past seventy and your most reckless dissipation is a short walk or a ride in the car and little sewing or read ing in a sunny wndow. That is as it should be. But ase-any age-has definite food needs, A baby must have milk. An elderly person needs less foo dand more simple food than at any other period of life. The hard work of life is done when one is past seventy, and there are not the same demands upo nthe body and its organs.
 You know the doctor told you that the tendency of the arteries is to harden a little after one is past sixty-five. And 1t is only reasonable to assume that the heart is not as strong as it once was. Think of the work one's heart achieves in long years of living! Even the kid gAys and the liver are less active than Shey were when you were a younger woman. You must consider all these things" ,..-.
 'aThe doctor said last year that could eat whatever fancied,n- said Grandma Lewis, settling down for an argument.
 "He meant in reason. He always says that a simple diet is the secret of good health, that people as they grow older should modify their Occu- pations and broaden their interests, spend more time out of doors, and eat less, than they ordinarily do. Ones food must always be regulated by one's occupation, age and the actual needs of the system"