Is excessive indulgence in liquor any worse than overeating? Not according to nature's answer. The inebriate deteriorates and so does the glutton. Both cause race deterioration. Gluttony is more common than inebriety and is responsible for more ills. Gluttony is often the cause of the tea, coffee, alcohol and drug habits. Overeating often causes so much irritation that food does not satisfy the cravings, and then drugs are used.
Improper eating, chiefly overeating, causes most of the ills to which man is heir. If people would learn to be moderate in all things disease and early death would be very rare.
It is quite important to combine foods properly, but the worst combinations of food eaten in moderation are harmless, as compared to the damage done by overeating of the best foods. Overeating is with us from the cradle to the grave. It shortens our days and fills them with woe.
There is a hoary belief that a pregnant woman must eat for two. The mothers have generally obeyed this dictum. The result is that women suffer greatly during pregnancy and at childbirth. The morning sickness, the aching back, the headache, the swollen legs and all of the discomforts and diseases from which civilized woman suffers during this period are mostly due to improper eating. Pregnancy and childbirth are physiologic and are devoid of any great amount of discomfort, pain or danger when women lead normal lives.
The overeating affects both mother and child. The mothers are often injured or lose their lives during childbirth. Sometimes labor is so protracted that the child dies and at other times the baby is so large that it can not be born naturally. The mother's suffering is frequently very great. In fact, it is at times so great that it is like a threatening storm cloud to many women, and some of them refuse to become mothers for this reason.
Babies born of normal mothers, who have lived moderately on a non-stimulating diet during gestation, are small. They rarely weigh more than six pounds. Their bones are flexible. The skull can easily be moulded because the bones are very cartilaginous. The result is that childbirth is rapid and practically devoid of pain. However, there are very few normal mothers, and consequently normal babies are also rare.
A heavy baby is never healthy. Its growth has been forced by excessive maternal feeding. It is no hardier than other growing things which result from hot-house methods. Such babies show early signs of catarrhal afflictions, indigestion or skin disease. Their bodies are filled with poisons before they are born.
Mothers who overeat invariably overfeed their babies. And why should they do otherwise? Family, friends and physicians give the same advice: The mother must eat much to be able to feed the child, and the child must be fed frequently in order to grow. It sounds very plausible, but it does not work well in practice.
Why are babies cross? Why do they soon show catarrhal symptoms? Why do they vomit so much? Why are they so subject to stomach and intestinal disorders? Why do they have skin eruptions? Because they are overfed.
The diseases of babies are almost entirely of digestive origin, and in nearly every instance overfeeding is the cause. Statistics show that about one-fifth of the babies born die before they are one year old. In nearly every instance the parents are to blame. One's intentions may be good, but good intentions coupled with wrong actions are deadly to infants. Oscar Wilde wrote, "We kill the thing we love." Parental love too often takes the form of indulging them and so it happens that hundreds of thousands of little ones are placed in their coffins annually through love.