Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 5Christian, Eugene
Science
Encyclopedia of Diet: A Treatise on the Food Question, Vol. 5
Christian, Eugene
Diet; Diet in disease; Food
Many a college youth, endowed by Nature with a sound physical body and a
healthy brain, has irreparably injured both by sitting on the end of his
spine with his feet higher than his head, poisoning his blood with
tobacco narcotics from a stylish pipe and failing to keep it purified by
obeying the laws of motion and of oxidation. Constructive exercises
should employ every muscle in the body long enough once in every
twenty-four hours to generate sufficient heat to cause perspiration, or
at least to force twice the normal quantity of blood to the lungs for
purification. Exercise thus taken up to the point of fatigue, and of
sufficient duration to use all the nutrition taken in the form of food,
will, under favorable conditions, build the body to its highest degree
of physical strength, provided we keep Nature supplied with the right
kind of material (food) with which to do her work.
EXERCISE FOR REPAIR
[Sidenote: In mature life exercise only for repair]
After the body has reached maturity, or attained its full growth, the
only exercise needed is for repair. This it must have or Nature will
inflict her inexorable sentence in some form of congestion.
[Sidenote: Why the "trunk" requires exercise]
In various industrial and professional pursuits the legs, neck, and arms
are used enough to keep them in a fair state of repair. That part of the
body, therefore, that suffers most for want of motion, or exercise, is
the trunk. In this part of the anatomy are located the vital organs
controlling not only the circulation and the oxidation of blood, but
also those organs upon whose normal action depend solely the questions
of digestion, assimilation of food, and elimination of waste.
[Sidenote: If properly nourished the body will demand a certain amount
of exercise]
If the food is selected, combined, and proportioned so as to produce
chemical harmony in the stomach, and to meet the requirements of age,
temperature of environment, and work, the body will be kept sufficiently
charged with energy to demand a certain amount of exercise. If the
command is obeyed the body can be trained to work automatically, as it
were, but where the vocation is sedative, or prevents obedience to these
demands, the trunk should be exercised in the open air from thirty to
forty minutes daily by flexing, tensing, twisting and bending in every
possible way, long enough and rapidly enough to double the normal heart
action and inhalations of air.
PHYSIOLOGY OF EXERCISE
[Sidenote: Necessity of motion for body development]
By motion (exercise) the muscles are stimulated in growth, becoming
larger and more firm, thus giving strength and symmetry to the body.
Food, without proper motion, will not develop muscular tissue to its
highest degree. Exercise must be taken to stimulate the growth of the
tissues forming the muscle-cells.
Among the benefits derived from exercise, the following may be noted:
[Sidenote: Growth produced by exercise]
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