Page:Helen Rich Baldwin - Nutrition and Health (1924).pdf/19



Many times health habits can be made interesting to children by appealing to their play instinct. Have them check up each day the number of health habits they have exercised and see how many more one child can practice than another. Competitive games are always stimulating.

Diet is an all-important factor in overcoming malnutrition. The kind and the amount of food a child eats, and the habits which govern the taking of such food, are vital matters.

To be well nourished a child’s food should furnish growing material, such as protein, which is a flesh and muscle builder and an energy producer; fat and carbohydrate, energy producers; ash for bone building; and vitamins, which are the growth stimulators and regulators.

Such growing materials are found in the growing foods—milk, eggs, fish, meat, cereals and other grain products, vegetables and fruits.