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Why seasickness (the term given to all forms of motion or travel sickness) should be considered funny is a mystery to anyone who has ever suffered from it. There is probably nothing to compare with the misery its victims endure. Nausea, dizziness, headache, and vomiting can be so severe that prostration results. Fortunately, however, it usually vanishes quickly, leaving no ill effects.

The exact cause of seasickness is not fully understood. We do know that it is related to stimulation of the eye and the labyrinth of the ear, which is an organ of balance as well as of hearing. Psychological factors can also be important.

There are countless ways to help ward off seasickness. Here are some useful suggestions:

Be sure you are rested and in good condition.

Get plenty of fresh air; avoid stuffy rooms and unpleasant smells.

Sit on deck with your eyes facing the ship, not the ocean. Keep warm.

Get some exercise unless you become actively ill; in that case, lying down with the head low often helps.

Do no overload your stomach. Small amounts of food taken frequently are usually better than a large meal.

Avoid rich, indigestible food.

Alcoholic beverages make some people feel less nervous, and in that way help to ward off seasickness. Also, iced creme de menthe and other pleasant-tasting drinks may help ‘settle the stomach.’ But, of course, alcoholic drinks in excess can also upset the digestion.

There are other things your doctor can do to help. Be sure to consult him if you know from experience, or if you are afraid, that you are going to have motion sickness on a boat, car, train, or plane. He may give you a sedative such as phenobarbital for a few days before the journey. He may prescribe medicines such as Dramamine or Thorazine, which have worked wonders in preventing or curing seasickness and other types of motion sickness. These must not be taken except on a doctor’s orders.

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The heart is a muscular, pear-shaped organ, slightly bigger than your fist, composed of four chambers with valves in them.

The heart is by no means a delicate organ. It has been handled by surgeons who have successfully sewn up wounds in it and have repaired or replaced the valves and corrected malformations. Protected by the tough and resilient ribs, the heart is rarely damaged by a blow. Like any healthy muscle, a healthy heart is not injured by exercise. However, there are definite limits to the amount of strain that should be placed on a middle-aged, old, or damaged heart. If you are over 40, such strenuous activities as shovelling sand or high-altitude hiking can precipitate heart strain. If you are overweight, your heart has to work much harder than it would if your weight were normal.

Guard your heart by avoiding obesity and, if you are middle-aged, by being sensible about exercise. In addition, follow this piece of advice: take your heart seriously but don’t worry about it. This may sound contradictory, but it is not. It simply means that you should have your heart checked at your regular medical examination, and if the doctor says it’s all right, forget about it.

Between your check-ups, you can keep your heart in good condition by some everyday precautions and activities. Avoid excessive smoking, especially if there is a tendency to heart attacks in your family. If you must smoke, use a pipe occasionally or a mild cigar. A good diet, with regular spacing of meals, helps the heart to work at its best. Keep your work and social life under control so that you are not chronically fatigued. Avoid reducing pills, as they may contain thyroid If you are so tense and driven in our competitive world that you suffer from a tendency to high blood pressure or heart pains (angina pectoris), ask your doctor about the advisability of a talk with a psychotherapist. You may be able to reduce the nervous tension to the point where you will avoid trouble with your heart in later life.

The great enemies of your heart are the following diseases (read the detailed accounts of them in the encyclopaedia section so that you will be alerted to their dangers and know what medical science has learnt about their prevention or mitigation): coronary heart disease, diabetes, hardening of the arteries, hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperthyroidism, nephritis (Bright’s disease), rheumatic fever (not rheumatism or arthritis, which do not
affect the heart), and syphilis.

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As described earlier in this chapter, the harder you work, the more food you need, just as a motor car consumes more petrol when going fast or going uphill. The work or energy that can be obtained from food is measured in calories. Some foods contain far more calories than others. One excellent calorie guide is How to Lose Weight Wisely, a booklet distributed by the National Heart Foundation of Australia. It can be obtained free of charge from the Foundation’s head office, Box 691, P.O., Canberra City, A.C.T., 2601, and from branch offices in each capital city.

Certain starchy vegetables have a high calorie value. They include baked and canned beans, green and canned corn, fresh peas, lima beans, potatoes, and rice. Also, fruit prepared with added sugar may be high in calories.

The following vegetables are intermediate between the low and high calorie ones: beetroot, carrots, canned green peas, onions, parsnips, pumpkin, squash, and turnips.

Among fruit, too, there are those that are high calorie: canned apricots, bananas, cherries, nectarines, pears, and plums. The following fruit are especially fattening: dates, figs, raisins, dried peaches, prunes, and apricots. The intermediate fruit include apples, blackberries, fresh grapes, fresh pears, and raspberries.

The person who ‘eats nothing’ and gains weight is undoubtedly concentrating on fattening foods. Some of these high-calorie foods are:

Butter, oleomargarine, cream

Oils and salad dressings

Lards and all foods fried in deep fat

Sweets, sugar, jelly, jam

Ice cream, malted milk, sodas

Carbonated drinks

Bread, plain and sweet biscuits, cakes, pastries, rice, noodles, macaroni,

spaghetti Fat meats and gravies Potatoes

Corn, peas, beans (except string beans), figs, dates, and other dried fruit

Nuts and olives Chocolate and cocoa

On the other hand, the person who eats all the time and does not gain weight is apt to be selecting the less fattening, low-calorie foods, such as the ones given in the list that follows.

Lean meats and eggs

Skim milk and cottage cheese (most other cheeses are not low in calories)

Asparagus, string beans, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, zucchini, endive, lettuce, mushrooms, pickles, radishes, sauerkraut, spinach, tomatoes

Blackberries, currants, gooseberries, grapefruit, rock-melon, oranges, fresh peaches, fresh pineapple, strawberries, watermelon

Not everyone can gain or lose weight simply by substituting some high calorie for some low calorie foods or vice versa. You may be eating so much or so little that this would have almost no effect on your total calorie intake.

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Diet for children

The formula for infants should be prescribed by your own doctor or by a hospital clinic doctor, who will tell you when to supplement it with cereal, vegetables, egg, and so on, and how much juice or vitamin concentrates to include in the baby’s diet.

From the time the doctor says your child can eat everything, his diet can be much the same as that of the adult given in the preceding pages, except that the child needs a quart of milk a day, and he may need snacks between meals to supply extra energy. Bread or biscuits covered with cheese, butter, or jam; ice cream; cocoa; and chocolate milk are good for this purpose. However, remember that sweets increase the risk of tooth decay and cavities.

Diet for the adolescent

During their rapid growth in adolescence, boys and girls need extra milk, proteins, and vitamins. It is essential that they eat the balanced diet listed at the beginning of this chapter. They need extra food and milk drinks between meals to add poundage to the lengthening body. Good dietary habits are especially important at this age.

Diet during pregnancy

The pregnant woman must supply her own body with proper food and at the same time eat foods to build the baby’s bones and tissues. This means that extra minerals, proteins, and vitamins are needed. The diet during pregnancy should be regulated by a physician. This is one of the reasons why every pregnant woman should be under the care of a doctor.

Diet for the later years of life

Many doctors feel that older people benefit from additional vitamins taken in capsule or concentrated form. Let your doctor decide what is best for you. He will probably caution you against gaining weight. Of course, ageing also brings with it other special considerations.

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Enough is now known about the direct relationship between smoking and several extremely serious diseases to cause me to say, along with many other doctors, ‘If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, stop. If you can’t stop, then at least cut down.’ The dangers and diseases associated with smoking are fully discussed in the entry on smoking in the encyclopaedia section.

You may wonder why I do not just tell everyone to stop smoking, without even suggesting they cut down. One reason is that my experience as a doctor tells me most people will not listen to such drastic advice. Habits are hard to break, even habits that injure our health. But I do emphasize two things—if you have children, do everything you can to persuade them never to start smoking. For yourself, if you cannot stop, cut down on your smoking until it becomes a low-risk activity. There is no reason to panic at the knowledge of how smoking damages the body, but it certainly makes sense to indulge in low-risk, not high-risk, smoking if you cannot break the habit.

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What are big boys made of?’ – independence, aggression, competitiveness, leadership, task-orientation, outward orientation, assertiveness, innovation, self-discipline, stoicism, activity, objectivity, analytic-mindedness, courage, unsentimentality, rationality, confidence, and emotional control.

‘What are big girls made of? What are big girls made of?’ – Dependence, passivity, fragility, low pain tolerance, non-aggression, non-competitiveness, inner orientation, interpersonal orientation, empathy, sensitivity, nurturance, subjectivity, intuitiveness, yieldingness, receptivity, inability to risk, emotional liability, supportiveness.

These quotations are from two feminists, Jane Bardwick and Elizabeth Douvan, who investigated the way Americans expected men and women to behave.

How true are these stereotypes? Can the two sexes be fitted into sex-typing so easily and, if they can, are the characteristics of each sex due to inherited psychological sex differences or are they due to learned behaviour?

We all know that little boys and little girls are different. They look different, they behave differently, they belong to ‘opposite’ sexes. But how exact is our knowledge, how much is it based on myths and on perceptions of what each sex should look like and how it should behave?

If small children were dressed similarly and had similar hairstyles (as they do increasingly), it would be almost impossible to tell if the child was a boy or a girl, without looking at its genitals. The body shape and other physical attributes of all children are very similar until they reach puberty. Up to the time of puberty the average heights, for each year of age, of boys and girls are quite close, as are their weights and the shape of their bodies.

Although boys and girls may have a similar physical appearance (apart from their genitals) most people believe that children of the two sexes have a different inherited psychological make-up, which makes them behave differently. How true is this? ‘What makes a man a man?’

A very considerable amount of research has gone into attempts to define sex differences. These have been summarized by Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin in their excellent book The Psychology of Sex Differences.

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To some extent the ease with which he adjusts depends on the security and confidence he has obtained during his childhood years, from his parents and other people. To some extent it depends on the attitude of his parents to his quest for his unique identity. If his parents are autocratic or authoritarian, they will oppose any attempt the youth makes to express his own views and to make his own decisions. This reaction may be because one parent (usually the father) had a difficult adolescence and has suppressed his own awareness of his turbulence at that time. He has retreated into a belief that he always knows best, and that his values are the only ones which his child must adopt. In a rigid society, this approach is possible, but in our pluralistic, mobile society it can create grave problems, particularly when the adolescent compares his lot with that of his friends, whose parents treat their children more as equals. The comparison may lead to deep anxieties and stresses.

The reverse is also true. If the parents either ignore the adolescent’s behaviour, or offer only minimal guidance, anxiety and guilt can result, as the adolescent is unsure whether or not he is behaving in a way of which his parents would approve. The most satisfactory way in which parents can behave to enable the adolescent to find his identity is for them to be able to discuss issues about the youth’s behaviour, openly and easily. In this way the adolescent can find if his decisions meet with the approval of his parents and if they do not, why not.

If the parents act in an authoritarian way, the adolescent may cease to seek his own identity, modeling himself completely on his father. In this event he may find, later, that he has a confused identity, and is less well able to relate to others. The alternative is for the adolescent to rebel, and to reject all that his parents hold as conventionally proper. If he chooses this course, he may also be hindered in forming his identity, or he may be so confused that his identity goes through multiple changes until he finally finds the one with which he is comfortable.

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Puberty starts in a complex way and merges complexly into adolescence, which is made even more complex because the terms ‘puberty’ and ‘adolescence’ are difficult to define. The Oxford English Dictionary defines puberty as ‘the state or condition of having become functionally capable of procreating offspring’. This definition has certain defects, as menstruation marks puberty in girls, but in the first year or so after menstruation has started most girls are incapable of becoming pregnant. Puberty in boys is marked by the ability to ejaculate, but in the first months the quality of sperms ejaculated is poor and the quantity small, so that a boy’s ability to procreate is limited.

Perhaps a better definition of puberty, for our purposes, is that it is a period of hormonal secretions, particularly of sex hormones, which lead to increasing bodily (including genital) differentiation of males and females, and which culminates in each individual’s ability to reproduce. In males, it means that orgasms are associated with ejaculation of good-quality sperms; in females, it means that menstruation (and later ovulation) occurs.

The definition of adolescence also causes problems, because it has no definite beginning or end. The Oxford English Dictionary says it is ‘the period between childhood and maturity extending from 14 to 25 in males and 12 to 21 in females’, which may make a large number of young men rather angry! It is a period of emotional turmoil, during which society begins to recognize the sexual capacity and social independence of the person, who starts mentally scripting his or her sexual drama, through fantasy and actions.

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Firstly, parents behave similarly to children of both sexes; and it assumes secondly, that a child’s idea of copying is the same as an adult’s. We know that when a child is given a complex sentence, it simplifies it. Perhaps a child may simplify the way it copies a model. Equally, it may be that a child sees and absorbs both sex models, but because of its increasing awareness of things about it and its attempts to classify them into things like it and things unlike it, it selects those things it feels appropriate for its own sex.

This implies that the child must have a rudimentary idea that there are two sexes. It could obtain this idea from the way parents (and other significant people) treat it.

In most ways, parents do not treat their children very differently. They show the same warmth to children of each sex, and reward or praise each to the same extent. In some ways they make a distinction: boys receive more punishment than girls, in part because they are less obedient, and in part because our upbringing inhibits us from inflicting physical pain on girls. But there is no difference in non-physical discipline: both boys and girls are threatened with the parent’s withdrawal of love if the child is naughty.

In a few ways, parents base their behaviour to a boy or to a girl on their conception of what the child of a particular sex should be. They encourage the child to do what is ‘natural’ for that sex, and discourage it from doing what is ‘unnatural’. They pay particular attention to training children in what they believe are the ‘natural’ strengths and weaknesses of each sex. Boys are encouraged to be competitive and are known to be more aggressive, so parents direct a boy child to be competitive and to be aggressive (but they control this). They direct a boy away from doing ‘sissy’ things, encouraging a boy to do ‘boyish’ things and girls to do ‘feminine’ things.

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The different attitudes and different behaviour towards boy-children and girl-children seem to be common to all societies, from those which are classified as primitive to those classified as culturally civilized. In the wide variety of human societies, the behaviour of parents and other adults towards boy-children and girl-children can, and does, vary considerably, but in all societies studied a distinctly different behaviour was shown towards boys and towards girls. The way people behave to a child and the different expectations they demand of the child, depending upon its sex, ‘imprints’ a distinct pattern of behaviour upon it so that it reacts in a distinctly masculine or feminine way. Once the child’s brain is conditioned in this way, it is difficult to reverse it, unless the society in which the child is reared normally expects such a reversal of sexual identity. Some primitive tribes, notably some North American Indian tribes, and some in the South Pacific, do in fact induce a change in sexual identity in children who do not apparently conform to the expected pattern of male behaviour.

A child’s masculine or feminine behaviour, depending on its sex, has two components. The first is its sex-typing or its gender-role. This is the way a person behaves to others to demonstrate he or she is a male or a female. The second is even more important. This is the person’s own awareness that he or she is a male or a female. This is the person’s gender-identity. Until a child has developed a gender-identity it is confused about its sexuality, and about its gender-role.

In Western societies, a complete reversal of gender-identity can be made with relative ease before the age of 4, but after this time the change is only possible in highly motivated individuals who have had doubts about their real sex induced by the doubting attitude of their parents, or who are exceptionally insistent upon the change, such as transsexuals.

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