638 VITALITY AND EFFICIENCY WITH RESTRICTED DIET. 



diet conditions than would, according to our other standards, be 

 expected from these men. These changes in performance and in prac- 

 tice, i. e., learning with successive performances, are most prominent 

 at those periods when the subjects are actually losing weight. The 

 changes, even at these times, are not what could be considered as at all 

 pathological. Just as the weights of the subjects, when they had 

 reached their low level, were still within what are commonly considered 

 by actuarial authorities to be normal limits, so the changes found in the 

 neuro-muscular processes usually seem no larger than the normal range 

 of results for supposedly normal men would permit. It is difficult 

 to estimate how much of a decrement may take place, for example, 

 in the muscle coordinations of a subject, and still not seriously interfere 

 with his usual activities. Theoretically, for competitive, high-grade 

 work, no decrement should be permitted, and therefore no conditions 

 allowed which will operate in the direction of such a decrement. Prac- 

 tically, and under urgent circumstances, an individual may adjust 

 himself to a rather wide range of neuro-muscular changes accompanied 

 by varying conditions or degrees of physiological and psychological 

 comfort and well being and at the same time do his usual work in a way 

 which to others, at least, is not sensibly inferior. 



REDUCED DIET AND SEX EXPRESSION. 



Prolonged reduced diet with resulting change to a lower nutritional 

 level might conceivably have some important sociological bearings. 

 It might be asked, for example, if there were under these circumstances 

 any change in the sex interest and desires. Under ordinary conditions 

 trustworthy introspective statements on this problem would be exceed- 

 ingly difficult to obtain. This is obviously due in large part to the 

 prudishness of our education in regard to sex matters. The ordinary 

 individual is not willing to reveal the facts of his own sex life and finds 

 difficulty in taking an objective attitude in reviewing them. If asked 

 direct questions, many a man would take the attitude that he was 

 insulted and would either refuse the information or evade the truth. 



It is important to emphasize the difficulties which usually surround 

 the collection of trustworthy sex data, for it so happens that they 

 contrast sharply with those which were fortunately present in our 

 research. The attitude of the Young Men's Christian Association on 

 knowledge of sex is well known. No other organized group of men 

 has treated the subject in a more straightforward and frank manner. 

 Both in the schools over which they have control and in their public 

 service for men in clubs and gymnasiums, they have labored to estab- 

 lish a sane view of these things and to place private and social hygiene 

 on a sure footing. At the International Y. M. C. A. College at Spring- 

 field, especially, it has been recognized that each secretary and physical 

 director must have a sound and wholesome attitude regarding these 



