Why? The Science of Athletics

What the Athlete's Diet Must Supply FOOD, FADS AND FACTS There are three mail?- requirements which the diet scheme drawn up for the athlete must meet, in that it must contain sub– stances which will (a) build and repair the tissues ; (b) store up and supply energy as muscular and nervous power, and also heat ; (c) facilitate certain internal bodily functions. From the foregoing statement we must inevitably reach the conclusion that it is not so much the quantity as the composition of the food that matters. A man may eat any quantity of food in his ignorance and yet be missing just that minimal amount of some substance which is essential to his physical well-being, as any dietician could tell him in a moment. On the other hand, the diet must be of sufficient calorific value. There are also the minerals of the diet which are present in the form of "salts". These help to regulate various important bodily processes. Principal among those minerals are calcium, iodine, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium, the iron and iodine being present in the protein of the food or the protein of the body. · The importance of calcium is well exemplified by the fact that is is contained in the blood at a certain concen– tration always, and if that concentration became less the heart-rate would be lowered to a dangerous degree, the muscles would become irritable, and the nerves would fail to carry 'the proper impulses. The calcium level in the blood is controlled by the para-thyroid glands, which have no other function. Iron is vastly important, because although we possess but a tenth of an ounce of this element, it is the key con– stituent of h<:emoglobin which carries the oxygen from the air in the lungs and distributes it by way of the blood– stream to all the tissues of the body. In the same way we could not possibly do without our one-thousandth of an ounce of iodine, which is concen– trated in the thyroid gland. Goitre, for example, is due to deficiency of iodine in a person's composition.