Nature demands from every form of life a certain amount of activity or motion. Any transgression of this law means disintegration. Rest is merely the process adopted by Nature to reconvert matter into its original elements. To whatever extent one ceases activity, Na-ture, under normal conditions, inflicts this penalty.

Cessation Of Activity Means Disintegration

Man's civilized habits and customs have produced a class of workers who, while at work, are deprived of their requisite amount of motion, and who, therefore, pay the penalty by shortened periods of life, and by numerous disorders which we have come to characterize as disease. There is but one method known to science by which these penalties may be avoided, and by which the worker whose occupation must be sedentary may become as healthful as his brother who can order his life in conformity with Nature's laws. That method lies in the ordering of his diet.

The Penalty Of Civilization

All disease may be called congestion, or the failure of the body to eliminate poisons and waste matter. The process of elimination is assisted by activity (work or play). The accumulation of waste and poisons in the body is measured or determined almost wholly by the diet.

Disease Is Merely Congestion

The man who is swinging a pick or a sledge hammer in the open air may eat or drink almost anything, because his powers of eliminating waste are aided by his work. It follows, therefore, that those whose work is of a sedentary nature must procure their nutrition from substances containing the minimum of waste, and producing the maximum of energy, and the quantity must be measured accurately by the demands of the body, or autointoxication (self-poisoning) will result.

Diet Governed By Work

Intestinal congestion (constipation), which is almost universal among sedentary workers, is caused in nearly all cases by consuming a quantity of food in excess of the physical demands, and which cannot be thrown off owing to the lack of exercise. It is at this point that science must lay out the dietetic regimen so as to make it conform to the occupation, or to the lack of physical activity.

The following are suggestions for a spring or summer diet for the average sedentary worker:

Breakfast

Cantaloup, berries or peaches, with sugar and cream.

An egg.

One or two bananas, with nuts, cream, and raisins (Bananas should be baked, if not very ripe)

Luncheon

Peas, beans, or asparagus A heaping tablespoonful of nuts A salad of lettuce and tomatoes, with nuts A baked potato, tender corn, or a very little coarse bread

Dinner

Melon or cantaloup Two tablespoonfuls of nuts One or two fresh vegetables, including an ear of tender corn

Fish, eggs, or buttermilk.

Plain ice-cream, if something sweet is desired.

General Directions For Sedentary Worker

The student will recognize that in these menus the heavier foods are prescribed sparingly, while the lighter or the more readily soluble articles predominate. From these suggestions a fair idea of a fall and winter diet can be drawn.

Indigestion, sour stomach (hyper-chlorhydria), constipation, malassimila-tion, and general anemia are the disorders with which the sedentary worker is most commonly afflicted.

In dealing with each and all of these conditions, including obesity, which is often the result of sedentary habits, the first thing to be done is to limit the quantity of food to the normal requirements of the body, and in extreme cases a diet below the normal should be observed; no one was ever made ill by underfeeding. Then, with proper care as to the selection, combination, and proportions of food, and an increased amount of exercise and deep breathing, the person of sedentary habits should be made as healthy and strong as the outdoor worker in the fields of manual labor.