Sophisticated Diets and Man’s Health 
attributed solely to improved food. Many other aspects of 
preventive environment have been improved during the twen- 
tieth century, while the therapeutic prevention and treatment 
of many types of disease has been vastly improved by the 
advances of medical science. Hybrid vigour has recently been 
canvassed as contributing towards increased stature. I am 
going to avoid controversy by confining myself to the conser- 
vative statement that, among all the many operative factors, 
improved quantity and quality of food must have played an 
appreciable part.* 
* If anybody is inclined to contest my dogmatism about the important réle 
of food I would meet him with some facts produced by my co-workers in Cape 
Town. Many public health workers and educators, when discussing infantile 
gastroenteritis, are inclined to attribute this principally to defective hygiene and 
to regard the associated malnutrition as a result of the infection. We have strongly 
suggestive evidence that, among our Cape coloured infants, the malnutrition was 
present before the gastroenteritis occurred. We believe, therefore, that properly 
nourished children have less morbidity and lower mortality from infective gastro- 
enteritis and that the most important single measure in combating gastroenteritis 
in the pre-school child is better feeding. 
THE DISADVANTAGES OF SOPHISTICATED DIETS 
Many of the advantages discussed in the previous chapter 
are bought at the price of some inseparable disadvantages. 
Some of these are overt and indisputable. Others are latently 
possible, particularly those which may operate covertly over 
long periods of time to undermine constitutional resistance to 
degenerative disease. They will be considered in an objective 
and critical spirit. Reference will then be made to some food 
fads which have wide acceptance even among educated people, 
before an attempt is made finally to weigh up the balance of 
effect on human health of the favourable and unfavourable 
trends in dietary sophistication. 
From a scientific viewpoint the unfavourable effects can be 
conveniently classified in terms of their early or late effects 
after consumption of the food. 
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