Healthful Dress
107
Of late years the dangers resulting from compression of the waist
have been so fully discussed that few can be ignorant in regard to
them; yet so great is the power of fashion that the evil continues. By
this practice, women and young girls are doing themselves untold
harm. It is essential to health that the chest have room to expand to
its fullest extent, in order that the lungs may be enabled to take full
inspiration. When the lungs are restricted, the quantity of oxygen
received into them is lessened. The blood is not properly vitalized,
and the waste, poisonous matter which should be thrown off through
the lungs, is retained. In addition to this, the circulation is hindered;
and the internal organs are so cramped and crowded out of place that
they cannot perform their work properly.
Tight lacing does not improve the form. One of the chief elements
in physical beauty is symmetry, the harmonious proportion of parts.
And the correct model for physical development is to be found, not in
the figures displayed by French modistes, but in the human form as
developed according to the laws of God in nature. God is the author
of all beauty, and only as we conform to His ideal shall we approach
the standard of true beauty.
Another evil which custom fosters is the unequal distribution of
the clothing, so that while some parts of the body have more than is
required, others are insufficiently clad. The feet and limbs, being re-
mote from the vital organs, should be especially guarded from cold by
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abundant clothing. It is impossible to have health when the extremities
are habitually cold; for if there is too little blood in them there will
be too much in other portions of the body. Perfect health requires a
perfect circulation; but this cannot be had while three or four times
as much clothing is worn upon the body, where the vital organs are
situated, as upon the feet and limbs.
A multitude of women are nervous and careworn, because they
deprive themselves of the pure air that would make pure blood, and of
the freedom of motion that would send the blood bounding through
the veins, giving life, health, and energy. Many women have become
confirmed invalids when they might have enjoyed health, and many
have died of consumption and other diseases when they might have
lived their allotted term of life, had they dressed in accordance with
health principles and exercised freely in the open air.