The Decatur Daily Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 4

PAGE FOUR Decatur, Illinois, WV-'dnesday, March 2, 1977 THE DECATUR REVIEW Decatur Daily Review The Community 1 Diet Changes Recommended mmmmm mi Op inions 1' W- Four Years Too Long for Change et j--- jf" life 0 THE PEOPLE who work in mentathospitals should have a high degree of understanding of the social, economic and medical causes of mental If they don't, their treatment -vf the mentally ill will be less Jtfaan it or should It is therefore disturbing that over: naif of the doctors working fofihe Illinois Department of Mental Health are unable to pass an Illinois medical certification test Many, of these doctors are refugees from the Second or from the Cuban cr Hungarian revolutions. Since unlicensed doctors, much time. That is too The department" is right to argue against firing the doctors. If over half of the state facilities' medical staffs suddenly left, chaos would result. In some areas, the remaining doctors' responsibilities would triple.

Furthermore, the state would have a difficult time attracting qualified replacements, since it can offer no attractive salaries or living conditions. The crux of the issue, however, is the right of mental patients, who cannot speak for themselves, to informed treatment. The department has always said the patients pet that in state institutions. But the failure of over half of the state hospitals' medical staffs to pass a certification test, naturally arouses suspicions about the quality of care in the hospitals. Similar suspicions are aroused about the inviolability of psychiatric judgment.

Doctors have said, for example, that a proposal to allow social workers to help decide who should be committed to mental hospitals violates medical prerogatives. The results of the certification exams make one wonder just how qualified some doctors are to decide whether or nqt to lock up mental patients. The judgments of psychiatrists and state departments are not, in fact, impeccable or inviolable. When doctors defend their professional prerogatives and department officials defend their hospitals, they think of their own welfare as wels as patients' welfare! It is noteworthy that medical associations and department officials are complaining about things other than the ongoing treatment of patients by unqualified people. The unlicensed doctors should be swiftly retrained.

The four years the department wants to get them certified is rimply too long to wait. In the meantime, the governor and legislaiure should provide enough money to allow the department t-j retain whatever qualified outside consulting doctors who can be found to help upgrade treatment of the mentally ill in state hospitals. Those public officials also should look carefully at whether the state is spending enough to train rew doctors. Something is wrong when the state mental health programs have to rely on such a large number of doctors from abroad who are unable to pass required certification tests. mey cue nui uuutij ui una culture," they inevitably have difficulty comprehending the social or cultural aspects of patients' problems.

To make up for this lack, these doctors' medical credentials should be impeccable. Abraham Lincoln has become more a monument than a man. Truth, Myth Differ Lincoln Had Flaws Like Everyone Else A law passed in 1972 required that these doctors pass the state certification test by 1976. In the interim, they have been practicing under special permits to work exclusively in state institutions. Recently, 127 of the 157 doctors in question took the test.

Thirty refused to take it. All those who did take it failed. Now the Department of Mental Health wants another four years to retrain the Be Wary of THE PERSONAL finances of of Columbia University described obesity as a "problem of life-style in the United. States, as well as the chronic use of food for non-nutritive purposes." In other words, many Americans have enough money to buy lots of rich foods, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages that aren't healthy but take the place of nutritious foods. Add the typical sedentary American life-style and the excess calories begin to build up.

-What to Do If your eating habits are typically American, here are some changes the committee report said would result in less cbesity and better health: Eat more carbohydrates, so that they amount to 55 to 60 so that they amount to 55 to 60 per cent of your total calories consumed. Most of them should be complex carbohydrates (fruit, vegetables, grains) rather than sugar. Reduce fat consumption to 30 per cent of calories eaten, from the existing 40 per cent average level. Saturated fats should account for only 10 per cent of total calories. Butter is composed of 50 per cent saturated fat, while other cooking oils and margarines, such as safflovver, soybean and corn, are much lower in saturated fat.

Cut cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams a day, from the current 600 milligrams a day. Eat less sugar. It should provide no more than 15 per cent of caloric intake, down from the average 24 per cent. Reduce salt consumption to three grams a day. Americans now eat between six and IS grams a day.

The main item in your diet should be fruits and vegetables, preferably fresh, and whole grains. The committee said foods such as bread and whole grain cereals are not fattening, as many people think. In reality, carbohydrates can help keep weight down by adding bulk that fills a person up and substituting real nutritive value for the non-nutritive calories of fats and sugars. The report said most Americans do not realize the amount of sugar they consume, since much of it comes from processed foods and soft drinks. The amount of "hidden" sugar we eat in such foods has more than tripled in the past 60 years.

Cutting down on soft drinks and baked goods was the report's principal recommendation cn sugar intake. The three grams a day of salt the report recommends is about three-fifths of a teaspoon, an amount that probably is ingested just with the processed food we eat each day. Such favorites as bacon, ham, peanut butter, catsup, pickles, popcorn and potato chips are all high in salt. To help counteract ads for junk" foods that are high in fat, cholesterol, sugar and salt, the committee recommended a federal program of nutrition education to be given in schools, federal food assistance programs, extension programs and on television. It also called for complete food labeling to disclose hidden additives, and increased" federal spending for human nutrition research.

McGovern was quick to say, "We don't want war with the food industry and the agricultural producers; we need their Nevertheless, those groups are bound to oppose some of his recommendations. ABOUT THE ARTICLE Rising health costs, proposals for national health insurance, the swine flu shot program are just a few of the health issues that have been part of the public agenda recently. Now a U.S. Senate Select Committee has said one of the best answers to health problems lies within the reach of most Americans individually. Mary Link of Congressional Quarterly reports.

By Mary Link Congressional Quarterly Washington With consumers, Congress end the Carter administration all looking for ways to cut soaring costs for health care, a Senate committee has come up with one simple but promising recommendation: Stop eating and drinking so much of the wrong things. Merely improving our nutrition could be one of the best preventive health measures we could take, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs said in a report, "Dietary Goals for the United Chairman George McGovern, D-S. noted at hearings on the report in early February that six of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States have been tied to eating and drinking habits: heart disease, cancer, stroke and hypertension, diabetes, arteriosclerosis and cirrhosis of the liver. Countless lives and suffering could be saved and as much as one-third knocked off the nation's health bills, some witnesses said if we could make some fundamental changes in our diet. The report was billed as the first major attempt by a federal body to make specific recommendations for changing" individual eating habits.

What's Wrong Americans since the early 1900s have turned away from a diet filled with fruits, vegetables and grain to one where more than 60 per cent of caloric intake comes from fats and sugars. Overuse of salt is enother major problem. Since fats and sugars are relatively low in vitamins and minerals, the committee report said, the country has been caught in a "wave of malnutrition," with resulting health care problems. Diets too high in fats and cholesterol appear definitely related to cardiovascular disease, which affects the heart and blood vessels. More Americans die from this disease than any other.

It costs 850,000 lives a year, and the bill lor health care costs and lost productivity runs an estimated S57 billion a year. Eating too much sugar can lead to tooth decay, diabetes and obesity, while high salt intake contributes to hypertension (high blood pressure). At the committee hearings, McGovern cited Agriculture Department estimates that an improved diet would reduce heart and vascular disease deaths by 20 to 25 per cent. Dr. George Cahill of the Joslin Institute added that "90 per cent of diabetes sufferers could better control their diseases if they controlled their diet." The related problems of cbesity are said to affect 30 million Americans, with the number increasing every year.

A person is defined as obese if he is 20 per cent overweight based on height, sex and Dr. Theodore B. Van Itallie Disclosure Side Effects Jtop policy making officials in the Carter administration are Jbeing publicly disclosed this The disclosures are a part of the requirements of the Presidents executive order designed to lessen the chances conflict cf interest in federal government decision mak-: -a '1 "I tell you, Speed, our forebodings, for which you and I are rather peculiar, are all the worst sort of nonsense," Lincoln rejoiced. Encouraged by Speed's success, Lincoln finally married Mary Todd; and she obviously helped him overcome his doubts, for they developed a strong and lasting physical love for one another. By the mid-1850's, Lincoln was a substantially wealthy man who nqt only liked money but used it to measure his worth.

He earned around $5,000 a year from his law practice the equivalent of some $150,000 today and had sizable investments in real estate and interest-bearing notes. As a lawyer, moreover, he defended all manner of people criminals as well as victims, slave-owners as well as Negro runaways. And when the pressures of work wore him down he could lose his temper and cry "damn" or "hell" like other mortals. Readers' mg. To many.

they will have kind of prurient sort of window primarily a interest, a peeking, into the affairs of the i 3 I I 9 6r.i. ill (I It i i ji i 1 "of 0 is, -mm tw fan fw powerful and-or the wealthy. There" will be outrage at the size -of- at least a few ad- 's---' liff'oiS1 This was especially true when he was President and had to contend with a river of raucous office-seekers and with dilatory, in competent generals. After George G. Meade let Robert E.

Lee escape from Gettysburg, Lincoln's rage, said journalist Noah Brooks, was "something sorrowful to behold." For his part, novelist Emerson Bennett observed Lincoln in various presidential poses from a gentle, judicious statesman to a "towering, angry Chief of the Nation, enforcing his order to the Provost Marshal General with swinging arms, shaking fists and stamping feet." In all, Abraham Lincoln was complex. By stripping him of his flesh-and-blood traits and enshrining him as a flawless deityr the myth makers have denied him something to which he's entitled: his right to be remembered as a human beins. Forum amended from time to time by petition and vote of the people. This is true home rule. I am sure every interested citizen will have his own recommendations for the provisions of such a charter.

I propose as Article I Section 1: "No bonds issued without a referendum." Edward J. Farrell Decatur Voting Is Great Freedom To the Editor: My sincere thanks to all the people who took the time to vote in the city primary election Feb. 22. It is one of the great freedoms we have as American citizens, to vote for the people nho will make decisions for us and decide where our money will be spent. Please vote for the candidates of your choice in the April general election.

Larry W. Foster Decatur About Letters Letters to the editor must carry a written signature and a street address or rural route number. The writer must permit ust of his name. Letters of 350 words or less are preferred. The Herald and Review will not edit letters to meet space Day By Day Ten Years Ago 1967 Two houses will be construc- tpH this summer hv vocational building trades classes in the "Decatur schools on lots on Tx 1 1 1 iU Keep Best of Home Rule ABOUT THE ARTICLE Illinois is the Land of Lincoln.

But the state's most famous son has become more monument than man. In this article, Stephen B. Oates argues we're all the losers for that, and unfair to Abraham Lincoln for allowing it to happen. He is a history professor at the University of Massachusetts and author of "With Malice Toward None." By Stephen B. Oates Amherst, Mass.

Most Americans think of Abraham Lincoln as a saintly rail-splitter who called himself Abe, spoke in a deep, fatherly voice, disdained material rewards and personified America's ideal Everyman. That is the Lincoln of mythology, but it is not the Lincoln of Certaily the real Lincoln was honest and compassionate, with a deep commitment to the right cf all people to elevate themselves. But he also had flaws like everyone else. In his younger years, he wrote cruel and anonymous parodies of others and liked to mimic his political rivals, imitating their walks and expressions. Contrary to myth, he had a shrill, high pitched voice.

And he loathed the nickname "Abe," for it did not befit a self-made professional who had worked hard to overcome the limitations of his frontier background. The truth is that Lincoln felt embarrassed about his log-cabin origins and never liked to talk about them. He seldom spoke of his father either, because there was an estrangement between them that lasted until Thomas Lincoln's death in 1851. Part of the trouble was that Thomas was an illiterate farmer and carpenter, while Abraham Lincoln became a prominent Illinois attorney who wrote poetry and read Shakespeare. In truth, Lincoln had considerable hostility for his father's intellectual limitations, once remarking that Thomas "never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name." When Thomas died in a nearby Illinois county, Lincoln did not attend the funeral.

That same Lincoln was also obsessed with death, viewing himself as only a moment in a rushing river of time. He was troubled about insanity, too, afraid that he might become "locked in mental night" without the power to know. Moreover, he had fears of sexual inadequacy, doubting his ability to please or even care for a wife. In 1842, Lincoln write his closest friend, Joshua Speed, about his problems, and both confessed that they had fears of "nervous debility" with women. Speed went ahead and married anyway and then wrote Lincoln that their anxieties were groundless.

namsey urive owneo. uy me Decatur School District. Fire Thursday destroyed a 20-- by -250-foot, building at the DeKalb Agricultural Association, research farm near Mllliopolis, killing more than young chickens, Traffic on the U. S. 51 north-south "couple and on Pershing Road -will be aided in finding directions by new overhead signs, Twenty Years Ago 1957 The 1957 tax rate on property within the city limits has been set at.

$3. 12 for each $100 of as ministration officials' holdings and financial resources. That is an unavoidable, largely undesirable side effect of the President's effort. American government and institutions are undergoing severe pressure of public confidence. Some contend that if the media and other members of the public trying to find out more about the personal and campaign finances of public officials would cease and desist, public confidence would improve.

Maybe. We doubt it. America. sessed valuation The figure, is 16 cents per $100 higher than the $2.96 rate of last year. A semi-automatic car washing business will be built and in operation by mid-May in the 2700 block N.

Main Street. A Decatur investor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has purchased four lots in that block end will erect a 34- by 130-foot masonry and brick building on thesite. Fifty Years Ago 1927 An actual loss has been shown on the first three days operation of the Cantrell Street bus. A Reserve Officers' Medical School course of instruction is being held here for two weeks. TWIS MOUE.

ARfA COOLV COmOl AfiREDirr fortunately, is something far irom a nation of sheep. Government decisions at all levels affect too many people's live in countless ways for that to happen. That has always been so It is likeh' to remain so. In recent years, with better educations, increased literacy and more time for more people tc actively carry out their duties as citizens, public realization- of that fact about government is more widespread. Under those circumstances, more people have gone looking into the connections of the personal and campaign finances of public officials to government- decisions.

What they have learned they found at least interesting and often disturbing. Others with whom they shared their revelations reacted similarly, putting the pressure on public officials to be more open about such things so that when people go to the polls to choose their representatives, they have enough information about candidates to make informed assessments. Gradually, more people have insisted on better enforcement of conflict of interest laws already put on the books supposedly to ensure more ethical conduct by public officials, but often not enforced. The Carter executive order, for example, is an effort to ensure the public knows enough about officials' finances to know whether or not existing laws are being enforced. Public disclosure makes public officials more conscious of possible conflicts of interest on their part.

Without the incentive of potential public criticism, it is all too easy for even well-intentioned public officials to drift unwittingly into a decision making process that may involve a conflict of interest, or, if not, still give such an appearance one thus furthering public cynicism about government. The Carter executive order, thus "has good objectives. Its requirements are intended to discourage the buying of the federal government by narrow, selfish interests in decisions that should be made considering the broader public interest. And the extent they succeed at that, they are intended to restore confidence in American institutions while acknowledging that skepticism and adequate information are essential assets for U.S. citizens who try to carry out responsibly their duties of citizenship.

As the disclosures are made by Carter administration officials, they deserve to be received in that constructive, broad perspective by the media and the public. More is intended and involved than the kind of emotiona-l kicks that come from reading the titillating innuendoes of some scandal sheet. Average American Diet To the Editor: The recent action by hundreds of our fellow citizens to abolish home rule is disturbing. It may be that in their praiseworthy efforts to improve local government they will destroy cne of our most precious rights and then discover that they have "slain the wrong dragon." Twenty years ago I was an ardent supporter of city manager form of government. Five years ago I was a strong advocate of home rule.

It is now apparent that the combination of the two is a municipal disaster. By its very nature, city manager form of government is incompatible with home rule. We elect a part time mayor and council whose primary duty is to hire the manuger. They bring in an expert from out of town who proceeds, to run the city in an efficient and ruthless manner, knowing that he will never have to face the voters. Certainly, this is not home rule.

Fortunately, there is a happy solution whereby we can enjoy the benefits of a city manager and still maintain home rule. Our sister states, who have long enjoyed home rule, long ago discovered the answer. When a city is granted home rule the voters of that community propose and adopt by popular vote a city charter. This clearly sets out what the hired experts at city hall can and cannot do. To be effective such a charter should be freely CURRENT DIET 16 Saturated: i 42 Fat 26 Poly-and Mono-Unsaturated 12 Protein I.

22 Complex Carbohydrate 46 Carbohydrate i24 Sugars DIETARY GOALS 10 Saturated 30 Fat 20 Poly-and Mono-Unsaturated 12 Protein 40-45 Complex Carbohydrate 58 Carbohydrate i15 Sugar; of Agriculture) 'Recommended by Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs SOURCE-. Senata Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs (Source tor current diet: Agricultural Research Service. U.S. Department TOE A PrViGEtf 36 ARMS.