In regard to the matter of diet. I do not want you to be hampered by
"don'ts" and restrictions as to what you shall eat, but I do want you
to eat with the thought in view that eating is to be governed by
judgment and not by the pleasures of sense. Why do we eat? Not merely
because the food tastes good. There is a better reason. We eat to
live. We know that the food which we take into our bodies is digested,
elaborated and assimilated--that is, made over into ourselves--and
unless this digestion, elaboration and assimilation is properly
conducted, we shall not be fully and completely nourished. Our body is
made up of cells; the food which we eat is transformed into cell
structure, and this new cell-material takes the place of the worn-out
cells. Our reason would tell us that if too little material is
furnished, cells will not be properly repaired and ill-health will
follow. Our reason would tell us in the same way that if too much
material is furnished, the machine will be clogged and the work will
not be properly done. We will also understand at once that an
irregular supply of new material would interfere with the elaboration
of that which is undergoing the process of digestion and assimilation.
We can see, too, that unless the various tissues receive the material
which they can transform into themselves, they will not be fully
repaired. If material is taken into the system which supplies no
tissue with what it needs, this material becomes a source of
irritation.
These general rules borne in mind are sufficient to guide us into a
wiser life than if we do not understand them; and, understanding
these general principles, we will be anxious to study the particular
rules which govern digestion and assimilation.
I have known young women in college to be so absolutely ignorant or
indifferent to physiological law as to be injuring themselves
constantly by disobedience of such laws. I knew one girl, supposed to
be a very fine student, and to have brought on "fits" by overstudy,
while away at school. I had an opportunity to investigate the case,
and I discovered that she had been eating from morning till night. She
carried nuts, and candy, and apples in her pocket, had pickles and
cake in her room, and studied and munched until it was no doubt a
disturbed digestion, rather than an overused brain, that caused the
"fits."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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