Nature provides and maintains a standard relationship between the capacity of the individual and his needs. A child has a digestive capacity to digest and assimilate a quantity of food sufficient for his growth and proper nourishment; an adult maintains the same standard according to his requirements. All the other organs are adjusted to harmonize with this scheme. If we overeat, the immediate result is to disorganize this relationship between the various organs; hence we have a multitude of effects which manifest themselves in various ways as a direct result of overeating. The combined general effect expresses itself in the form of what is regarded as poor health and a low standard of efficiency. When a larger quantity of food is taken into the stomach than it can properly digest within a reasonable time, two conditions immediately follow. The stomach itself is dilated and the food is not thoroughly digested. If the habit is persisted in, indigestion, and later chronic gastritis ensues. The direct symptoms of these conditions are given in detail in another part of this book. Very few individuals, however, appreciate the indirect consequences of overeating and of indiscriminate eating on the general health. It is impossible to tabulate in so many words the effect which this habit has on efficiency and temperament. We read and hear a great deal to-day about efficiency. Now, an individual's efficiency is an expression of that individual's health standard or capacity. To be 100 per cent. efficient one must enjoy good health. It would be absurd to expect a high standard of efficiency from an individual with a low standard of health. Poor health means poor vitality. Vitality is the mark of the master. Without vitality one can never dominate. All the great achievements of the race have been consummated by those who conserved their vitality. No single factor contributes a larger percentage of inefficients and failures than overeating. The man or woman who, from habit or experience, has learned the lesson of right eating and living need not be lacking in efficiency, nor need they despair of the attainment of success.
Symptoms of Overeating.—Efficiency depends not only upon one's capacity to perform, but upon the character of the performance. The spirit must be willing to perform. The overeater is heavy, phlegmatic, indifferent, lacking in energy, tact and initiative. She is constantly subjecting her system to needless overwork; she is depressed, nervous, imaginative and she is not ambitious. She is a victim of self-poisoning, of constipation, indigestion, headaches, flatulency, neuralgia, vertigo, and melancholia. An overeater never enjoys good health, never is efficient, and cannot possibly be successful.
To enjoy good health one should know how to select food and how to combine and proportion it. It has been said that the American people are a race of dyspeptics, and it must be admitted that the assertion is more or less true. There are millions of people who suffer from indigestion in some degree, and it may justly be said that indigestion has its beginning in overeating, in some form. It may not be overeating in actual bulk, but it is overeating some article or articles that do not agree with the individual, and the fact that certain articles do not agree is unquestionably dependent upon the nervous temperament of the American people—and the temperament of a people is a product of the kind of existence the people subject themselves to. We are, therefore, unwittingly, victims of our environment.
Correct eating means simple eating—only a few things at a time. Food should be selected according to one's age and occupation, and according to the season of the year. To eat habitually large quantities and at the same time a large variety is suicide pure and simple. If one dared to make the experiment of cutting down one's diet one-half, it is absolutely certain the effect would be immediate benefit. The benefit would not only be manifest in the physical betterment, but the efficiency and general well-being would be greatly enhanced. It is not the kind of food that makes a dyspeptic, but the quantity. A well person need not consider whether a certain kind of food will or will not agree, providing she does not eat too freely of that food, or combine it with other food. The combination of which may in itself form too much of one kind at a time.
Some people imagine, for example, that oatmeal porridge does not agree with them. When the matter is inquired into, however, it is found that they habitually eat bread, eggs, and other articles, with coffee at the the same meal with the porridge. From this combination they experience distress and blame the porridge. If these would take a plate of oatmeal porridge with cream and salt, and some stewed fruit for breakfast they would not experience any trouble, and this would be an ample meal for the ordinary individual. It is not the porridge, but the unsuitable combination, that is at fault. The same may be said of milk. Many people state that they cannot take milk and they deprive themselves of one of the very best articles of diet because of this idea. There are very few people in the world who cannot take milk in some way. It is not the milk that is at fault; it is the combination of it with other less nutritious articles that is the cause of the distress. Even candy is responsible for thousands of cases of indigestion. Anyone may safely take a reasonable quantity of good candy, but if it is taken at a wrong time, or combined with other articles, it may readily produce indigestion.
Indiscriminate eating and overeating are prolific causes of rheumatism, kidney disease, heart disease, liver troubles, obesity, arteriosclerosis, and apoplexy. These diseases are notoriously on the increase and must be construed as a direct consequence of the tendency of the American people to overeat and to eat indiscriminately.
Bran as a Food.—In the chapter on constipation there may be found a formula for making bran muffins. These muffins are invaluable to children in health, and to the victim of indigestion or constipation, whether child or adult. One muffin with each meal will solve the problem of constipation in growing children without the use of drugs or other aid. They will regulate the bowels of adults in many instances without resorting to drugs.
Raw fruit in season, or stewed fruit, or a baked apple, with a light boiled egg and one bran muffin, is an ample and a nourishing breakfast for a child at school.
For lunch the same child should have a plate of thoroughly done vegetable soup, a bran muffin, and more fruit. After school, a glass of milk with two or three Graham wafers may be given.
For dinner the child at school may have a mixed meal. This meal should not be later than six-thirty o'clock and the child should retire at eight-thirty at the latest. A bran muffin should be taken with this meal unless the child's bowels are too loose.