Impaired digestion acquired in childhood is apt to continue through life. The structure of the human body being so largely dependent upon good, wholesome food taken at proper intervals, the importance of laying a good foundation in childhood needs no argument.
The practice of allowing children to eat at short intervals through the day is exceedingly deleterious. Cakes, nuts, fruit and other good things, in carefully regulated quantities, should form a part of the regular meal, when the children are old enough to have them, and should not be eaten between meals. When it is remembered that one-half of all the children born into the world die before reaching the age of sixteen, the importance of children’s diet becomes apparent.
=Selection.=--In the selection of food, reference should be had to climate, season, occupation, and suitability. The races of the far North subsist largely on the blubber of seals and other fatty substances. In the winter season, persons living in the temperate zones require more of the heat-producing foods, and in summer, fruits and vegetables are more largely used. The man who leads an active out-door life consumes more oxygen, and requires not only more food, but of a kind that will rapidly build up muscle and impart strength. And not the least consideration, in the selection of food, is that of suitability or adaptation to the individual’s condition or peculiarity. “What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” says the old proverb. Most persons have found that certain fruits or vegetables or other articles of diet, which are generally considered wholesome, do not agree with them. It is important that each individual should study his peculiarities, in this respect, and abstain from eating or drinking those things which experience has shown will produce discomfort.
Happy is the man whose digestion is so perfect that he is never reminded that he has a stomach. But even those who cannot boast of such enviable powers of digestion, may yet, by a proper amount of exercise and the regulation of their diet, build up health and strength, and lead lives of usefulness and happiness, free from the many ills growing out of improper eating.
=Proper Food.=--Life is conditioned upon the proper supply of food. Men may, and do, exist upon very unsuitable food. To be able to do a good day’s work within the hours of a reasonable working day is every man’s birthright. Many men, like Esau of old, sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. Unlike him, however, they are not pressed by stress of hunger, but, merely to please the palate for five minutes, they burden the digestive organs for five hours, and repeat the process day after day. The comparison, therefore, is rather complimentary to Esau.