Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/12

 The right choice of foods is the first rule of healthful living. This does not mean one must undertake a limited and distasteful diet. Quite the contrary. When the body’s food needs are understood and the composition of the various foods is known, it is possible to enjoy even a greater variety of palatable dishes.

The human body must have food materials of various types and amounts if it is to be kept brimming with health. It needs certain food elements to make it grow, others to furnish energy, others to regulate its functions, and still others to build new and repair old tissues.

Not only must the body have the right food for each requirement, but it must have each type of food in proper amounts. The meal must be balanced—that is, it must contain energy-giving, tissue-building, function-regulating, and growth foods in right proportions. What these right proportions are depends upon the age, size, sex, and activity of the individual.

Food for a nutritious diet must be chosen carefully and in the right proportions. Just because we do not become violently ill immediately following a meal does not mean we have had food which will keep our bodies healthy. The bad effects of wrong food selection show themselves in more subtle ways. But science has established beyond a doubt that wrong eating, slowly but surely undermines the health and leaves the body easy prey to disease.

Every mother has seen how what she eats affects her nursing child. Science has established also that her food