The entire framework of the body—bone, muscle, blood, brain, and nerve—as well as the heat and the mental and physical energy necessary for every motion is supplied from food and drink, and from the oxygen breathed into the lungs.
We are learning that derangements of the body are largely caused by injudicious eating, yet, vital as it is, the subject of foods, except in recent years, has not had a place in the courses of study in our public schools.
We have given much attention to the “pound of cure,” but insufficient attention to the “ounce of prevention.” Man does not enjoy life to its full, nor do his physical or mental efforts yield him his best returns unless his system is thoroughly nourished.
Formerly, the physician gave general directions, or none at all, as to the diet. His directions, when given, were often indefinite because the subject was not definitely understood, due to the fact that the course of instruction in medical colleges contained practically nothing on the subject of foods. This study is not in the curriculum of all of our medical colleges to-day.
Our public-school curriculum contains no more important study than that of health and of the simple, hygienic laws which enable us to retain it. The science of foods in their relation to health, sanitation, and general hygiene should be among the foremost requirements of our public-school courses of study. Mothers’ clubs will find no more interesting or profitable study than Dietetics.
It is coming to be widely recognized that a far larger number of diseases arise from the food habit than from the liquor habit. Many who look with contempt or pity on the victims of alcohol, are themselves diseased of body through the unintelligent use of food.
Habitual overeating not only produces diseases of the digestive organs, from overwork and excessive secretory activity, but also of the excretory and glandular system, as the kidneys and the liver, and may give rise to functional disturbances of the heart.
Food, if taken in greater quantity than the digestive juices can handle, either passes out of the system without being absorbed or it ferments or decomposes, giving rise to constipation, diarrhea, or other intestinal disturbances.
If the stomach and intestines are active and can handle the excess of food, its absorption beyond what the system requires overloads the blood and causes obesity or diseases of the skin and kidneys. It thus brings about abnormal deposits as in gout, or the calculi found in the kidney or the gall-bladder. Biliousness and congestion of the liver may follow, with constant headache, coated tongue, foul breath, and languor of body and of mind.
Many habitually eat too much and take too little fluid, though, due to a greater spread of knowledge, overeating is becoming less common.