Evening star., 1926-05-10
FOOD AND HEALTH
BY WINIFRED STUART GIBBS.
Food Specialist.

Why not stop rafting the dry bones
of food facts in the tired ears of those
who need advice in regard to improv-
ing their nutrition?
1t would require a very sunny dis
! position to react with genuine en-
! thusiasm TO the statement that '2 100
| calories are needed to give sufficient
energy for one of your sex, age and
ocCupation,'
On the other hand, say to that wom-
an (the 200 tells us that 1t is Wom-
anD: You play an awfully good game
of tennis. Pity that you are not enter
| ing for the singles in the tournament"
| Watch her eyes flash,
| Or suppose one is talking to a child
who is sensitively alive to the fact
that he is behind his chums in his
standing at school. Try some such
entering wedge as this; Jim is a good
scout and YOU can easily catch up
with him: all you need is a little more
pep, and there's nothing like milk and
orange juice and spinach 10 put pep
| into a chap
In other words, some of us have
perhaps been a bit too insistent on
stressing the dry-as-dust and technical
details of diet. What we should he
doing is 10 steep ourselves first of all
| in a knowledge of the special interests
of those whom we are striving to
help.
| Accustomed as we are to dwelling
on technicalities, we shall probably
| have to begin our training at home.
| Self-training comes first here, as in so
many other of lifes activities. A lit.
| tie practice in visualizing the aims for
which we are working will do Won
! ders. We shall find our minds teem
ing with pictures of happy school chill
! dren, romping ioNouSlY on hockey
| field or tennis court, or triumphing
easily over the intracacies of "math. ="
| There will be visions equally definite
of successful business men and women,
of We'll poised and spiritually satisfied
! home makers, as well as of leaders
who help to make the wheels of the
worlds machinery ''go round"
| When such pictures as these precede
| the laboriOus acquisition of more or
| less nOn-Stimulating facts we shall
! find ourselves possessed of fresh in
| SpiratiOn as regards the study itself!
! For it is so easy to relate the facts
/ about food values to the question of
| the energy needed to help Jack win
| the tennis match. That mothers am
! bition to shine as a social success is
! laudable we have long believed. but
when we realized that complete nutri-
! IlOn VIII 20 d lDIlE way lONdIu SlN llIS
! her the poise so necessary to social
success. what more natural than our
newly intensified interest in the study
of dietetics'
In our zeal TO do n good job of
whatever presents itself at the mo-
! ment it is fatally easy to slip into the
| way of being overacademic about this
present day "craze" for information
! about diet.
If we are, perhaps, more or less
/ alone. and must depend on our own
enterprise for the acquiring of the
| needed information as to how best to
| reduce" or as to the proper diet for
| that troublesome ailment. then the
| situation calls for application of this
same principle. Let us think prima-
| rily of what we wish most to accom-
plish when our diet has been revised.
| Ten chances to one the dry bones of
dietetics will he changed into freshly
blooming flowers of knowledge!