PHYSICAL TRAINING AND NUTRITION
No one who has followed the development of physical culture movements in the totalitarian States, with their thorough organisation and propa- ganda, or studied the much more spontaneous movements in such individualist countries as the Scandinavian States and Czechoslovakia, can doubt that we have an enormous leeway to make up. Moreover, in all the Continental States, whether totalitarian or democratic, physical culture is an essential part of the conscription system. Although there is a-vast difference between military drill and physical culture on the wide recreational lines gradually being worked out in this country, there is no doubt that military service and an annual period of training go far to make a nation physically fit. Our business is to devise a system that will produce the same results, and to do it quickly. What must be aimed at is " The free cultivation of body and mind," on the Scandinavian rather than the German model, and the proper co-ordination of physical training and nutrition.
The popularity of hiking and camping, the spread of organised games and physical training classes in secondary and primary schools throughout the country, the increase of physical culture classes of one kind and another among innumerable voluntary organisations, such as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides, the Y.M.C.A., which are not primarily concerned with gymnastics, the response to the appeal for King George's Playing Fields and the growing interest taken in these subjects by the Press, all show that the time is ripe for an extensive movement on national lines. But there are many difficulties to overcome. One is the great shortage of trained instructors, of which the new Government programme will no doubt take account. Another is common to practically every social activity in this country— the immense number of voluntary organisations through which, in the main, the movement must be got under way. Co-ordination is clearly needed here.
That any policy which aims at national fitness must include provision for remedying malnutrition— particularly among adolescents—is largely common ground today. The principle was insisted on in the Report of the Physical Education Committee of the British Medical Association, which stated categori- cally, that " an addition must be made to the diet of persons . . . whose nutrition is inadequate, if any benefit is to be derived from the exercise " ; and it is implicit in the last annual report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. But to create anything in the nature of a national nutrition service must, in any case, be a long business, and at the moment the Government is awaiting the report of its Advisory Committee on Nutrition, appointed in 1935. The physical training campaign, on the other hand, is to start now ; and nothing could be more fatal to its success than a long-drawn contro- versy as to whether nutrition comes before training or training before nutrition.
Such controversy can be avoided by boldly recog- nising the direct connexion between nutrition and physical training as far as possible in the classes themselves. This has already been done by the Ministry of Labour in the Distressed Areas, who, on medical advice, provided snack meals of " protective " foods, generally milk and chocolate biscuits, for all those taking part in the classes. This greatly added to the popularity of the classes-10,000 boys- and young men were enrolled within a very few months— as well as to the efficiency of the training ; and the example of the Ministry is more and more being followed by voluntary bodies dealing with unem- ployed persons. It is frequently claimed—and some- times denied—that nobody need starve in England. Broadly speaking, that is true. Foods which yield to the body energy alone, such as, for example, white flour, sugar and margarine are good sources of energy ; and even very poor housewives are generally in a position to give their families a suffici- ency of food of this kind. But these foods do not provide the body-building materials needed for growth and health. The body-building and health promoting foods—such as dairy products, meat, fruit and vegetables—are much more expensive. These are the protective foods, which contain vitamins, minerals and protein, and their importance is being more and more widely recognised today. This was stressed in the recent report of the Health Committee of the League of Nations and in Sir John Orr's report on the " Food, Health and Income of the British people," while the interesting investigations of Dr. M'Gonigle, Medical Officer of Health for Stockton- on-Tees, show clearly that while the poorer families may get enough in bulk and in energy-giving foods, they suffer from a definite shortage of the protective foods. The Government has already shown its recognition of the .problem through the milk-in- schools scheme, and milk is perhaps the chief protec- tive food. But if the physical fitness campaign is to be a success, much more than that is needed. The human body needs to be built up by adequate supplies of suitable food before its latent powers can be developed by exercise. Both parts of tl?e double task must be undertaken with equal vigour. To attempt only half means achieving far less than that half.
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