Physical education, or the Health Laws of Nature. Chapter III Outdoor Life.

Felix L. Oswald, M.D. (1845-1906)—a pioneer in the Natural Hygiene system of health care—was the author of several books; amongst them were Nature’s Household Remedies (1890), The Poison Habit (1887), Vaccination a Crime (1901), Fasting, Hydrotherapy, and Exercise (1901), and Physical Education (1883), from which we present a condensation of Chapter III, Out-Door Life. Cast your mind back to 1883. Chester A. Arthur was President; the population of the U.S.A. was fifty million; the steam engine had already been invented, and the telephone had recently appeared on earth in 1876, followed by the incandescent lamp beginning its illumination of the “black night” in 1879. The late nineteenth century was a time of Stygian darkness in men’s minds; windows were shut tight while people were sleeping to keep out the “deadly night air.” As Oswald points out in his Chapter on Diet, eating habits were abominable. He stresses the desperate need for “remedial reform,” the lack of awareness of the essential value of sunshine, exercise, and rest. Under the heading of Hygienic Precautions, he expresses his feelings about so-called “treatment” when he says: “If I should name the greatest danger of childhood, I would unhesitatingly, say. Medicine.” The hallmark that distinguishes the exponents of Natural Hygiene—whether they are lay people or professionals—is that historically since the year 1820, they have been (and still are) far ahead of their time. Except for Dr. Oswald’s current reference to certain people and places, which may have been household words during his life term, what he has to say is so pertinent that it might have been written in 1982. 

Every disease is a protest of Nature against an active or passive violation of her laws. But that protest follows rarely upon a first transgression, never upon trifles; and life long sufferings—the effects of an incurable injury excepted— generally imply that the sufferer’s mode of life is habitually unnatural in more than one respect. For there is such a thing as vicarious atonement in pathology: a strict observance of any one of the three or four principal health-laws rarely fails to reward itself by a long immunity from the consequences of otherwise evil habits. Frugality thus counteracts the morbific tendency of indolence; perfect continence may steel even a feeble constitution against the effects of hunger and overwork; and, by avoiding the great vice of intemperance, the Epicureans atoned for a multitude of minor sins. 

But the surest of all natural prophylactics is active exercise in the open air. Air is a part of our daily food and by far the most important part. A man can live on seven meals a week, and survive the warmest summer day with seven draughts of fresh water, but his supply of gaseous nourishment has to be renewed at least fourteen thousand times in the twenty-four hours. Every breath we draw is a draught of fresh oxygen, every emission of breath is an evacuation of gaseous recrements. 

The purity of our blood depends chiefly on the purity of the air we breathe, for in the laboratory of the lungs the atmospheric air is brought into contact at each respiration with the fluids of the venous and arterial systems, which absorb it and circulate it through the whole body.

 In other words, if a man breathes the vitiated atmosphere of a factory all day and of a close bedroom all night, his lifeblood is tainted fourteen thousand times in the course of the twenty-four hours with foul vapors, dust, and noxious exhalations. We need not wonder, then, that ill-ventilated dwellings aggravate the evils of so many diseases, nor that pure air should be almost a panacea.

Outdoor life is both a remedy and a preventive of ail known disorders of the respiratory organs; consumption, in all but the last stage of the deliquium, can be conquered by transferring the battle-ground from the sick-room to the wilderness of the next mountain-range. Asthma, catarrh, and tubercular phthisis, are unknown among the nomads of the intertropical deserts, as well as among the homeless hunters of our Northwestern Territories. Hunters and herders, who breathe the pure air of the South American pampas, subsist for years on a diet that would endanger the life of a city dweller in a single month.

It has been repeatedly observed that individuals who attained to an extreme old age were generally poor peasants whose avocations required daily labor in the open air, though their habits differed in almost every other respect. The average duration of life in various countries of the Old World depends not so much on climatic peculiarities or their respective degree of culture as on the chief occupation of the inhabitants; the starved Hindoo outlives the well-fed Parsee merchant, the unkempt Bulgarian enjoys an average longevity of forty-two years to the west Austrian citizen’s thirty-five. 

In the cities of the higher latitudes, sedentary occupations in a vitiated atmosphere become often a sort of “second nature”: artisans and shop-keepers, after following their business for a number of years, frequently come to dislike fresh air. But this abnormal indolence seldom becomes hereditary—perhaps never, if we except the children of inebriate idiots. The medieval prejudice against all natural propensities—founded on the dogma of innate depravity-is, indeed, strikingly refuted by a young child’s love of outdoor exercise.

Without the mediation of supernatural revelators or preternatural bugbears, a healthy boy prefers even the hardships of our northern winter sports to the atmosphere of a comfortable stove-room, and in summer-time the paradise of childhood is still a tree-garden. No domestic events of our later years can efface the impression of the woodland rambles, butterfly hunts, and huckleberry expeditions of our boyhood: the recollections of our first out-door adventures endure like the mountains and rivers of a promised land whose cities have vanished for ever. 

I have often been asked at what age infants can first be safely exposed to the influence of the what age infants can first be safely exposed to the influence of the open air. My answer is, on the first warm, dry day. There is no reason why a newborm child should not sleep as soundly under the canopy of a garden tree on a pillow of sun-warmed hay as in the atmosphere of an ill-ventilated nursery. Thousands of sickly nurslings, pining away in the slums of our manufacturing towns, might be saved by an occasional sun-bath. 

Aside from its warmth and its chemical influence on vegetal oxygen, sunlight exercises upon certain organisms a vitalizing influence which science has not yet quite ex plained, but whose effect is illustrated by the contrast between the weeds of a shady grove and those of the sunlit fields, between the rank grass of a deep valley and the aromatic herbage of a mountain meadow, as well as by the peculiar wholesome appearance of a “sunburned” person or a sun-ripened fruit. 

Sunlight is too cheap to become a a fashionable remedy, but its hygienic influence can hardly be overrated. Even in the glorious climate of the Latian hills, the Roman Epicureans constructed special solaria—glass-covered turrets— where they could bask in the full rays of the winter sun the balm of old age, as Columella calls it; and, on the summerless Isle of Rügen, Nature has taught the poor fishermen to carry their bairns to the downs of Stubbenkammer, whenever the Baltic fogs alternate with a few sunny days. 

Dry sand is, indeed, an excellent medium of solar caloric. Children like it instinctively; most babies are fond of rummaging in some tangible, yielding element. In default of a sunny beach, get a car-load of river-sand, spread it and expose it to the sun for a couple of hours, then rake it together, mix it ad captandum with a bushel of pebbles (good-sized ones, lest they might be mistaken for sugar plums), divest your bambino of all superfluous clothing, and let him wallow—all afternoon, if he chooses; if the surface of the pile gets too warm, instinct will teach him to dig down to the cooler substrata. Or take him to a meadow where fresh hay has been piled up in little stacks; climbing and tumbling will do him more good than lying motionless in a narrow baby-carriage. The inventor of the Kindergarten recommends a grassy hollow with scattered playthings, piles of dry leaves, etc. (near a shade-tree in midsummer), where young squealers can take care of themselves for an hour or two, and warrants that they will not cry, unless their botanic researches should happen to acquaint them with the properties of the German horse-nettle. On mild winter days, too, self-motive babies ought to pass a few hours out-of-doors, even if the ground be a little wet; a sunny nook on the lee-side of a garden-wall is a healthier play ground than the dusty floor of a stove room.

From the fourth to the end of the fourteenth year children should spend the larger part of every summer in out-door exercises. Next to a total reform of our dietetic habits, a general observance of this rule would be the surest way to regain the hardiness and longevity of our forefathers. The years of growth lay the foundation of our bodily constitution, and, under favorable circumstances, the human system, during that period, seems to accumulate a surplus of physical vigor, which in after-life will become available as an annuity fund of health and happiness.

Education, like charity, ought to begin at home; in boarding-colleges, protectories, orphan asylums, etc., the rudiments should be taught in winter schools. At the price of life-long infirmities precocious erudition is too dear-bought; besides, it should not be forgotten that in the years when students can take a personal interest in their lessons they will make more progress in a single month than during years of involuntary confinement in boy-pens, as Dr. Salzmann calls our municipal baby-schools. The employment of young children in cotton-factories is a crime against society, and ought to be legally prohibited, like the trade in Italian organ-boys and Chinese slavegirls. Swiss artisans, who have passed their boyhood in the mountains, are comparatively proof against the influence of in-door occupations. And, in the mean time, out-door life need not be a life of idleness. 

That children are fond of play means simply that they prefer entertaining employments to tedious ones. Youngsters under five years gambol instinctively like young puppies, in order to acquire the art of locomotion, but soon afterward they begin to play with a conscious purpose, and do not object to playing at something profitable; young savages and peasant-boys join in the labors of their parents with an eagerness that vindicates human nature against the charge of innate frivolity. 

Make your boy a Jack-of-all-out-door-trades before you make him a classic polyglot, and, if you destine him for any trade in special, let him play with the tools of that special trade. “The best plan of education,” says Goethe, “is that of the Hydriotes, the Greek trading-sailors, who take their infant boys out to sea and let them sport around amid oakum and belaying-pins before they learn to handle them with a business purpose. Such a school has graduated the heroes who with their own hands could grapple the fire-boat to the flag-ship of the enemy.” 

Even for their children’s sake, married men should never quarter their families in the heart of a great city. Not everybody can own a farm, but, wherever the suburban cottages adjoin waste building-lots and dry ravines, there will be no lack of opportunities for out-door pastimes. Let the girls make weed-brooms, and the boys construct fortifications, à la Uncle Toby, if they can do no better, and miss no chance to send them out in the country for a day or two. 

Our town parks are too exclusive; sauntering between inviolate grass-plots and prohibitory placards is dull work for urchins that long to commit horse-play; but there are few cities, even on the Atlantic sea-board, where the “open country”—woods, fallow fields, and hill-sides—could not be reached by a two hours’ walk. There let your children spend every sunny afternoon; make arrangements with your neighbors, and engage a guide if you can not afford to go yourself; teach the youngsters to collect beetles and butter flies, encourage the fern mania if your girl has outgrown the buttercup period, connive at a bird’s nest or two, do anything to keep them out of the tenement dungeons.

If you are blessed with a farm (or a tolerant country cousin), hay-making, apple-gathering, repairing of ditches and garden-walls, will make earth an Elysium to every normal child; never mind the weather; a summer shower, a chilly morning, or a hot afternoon will not hurt a healthy boy, and the girls will take care of themselves—or rather of their dress—if the grass is wet. If you send them to school before their teens, give them at least the full benefit of their vacations and of every free Saturday. 

In fall and winter a day of athletic field sports will keep a boy in tolerable health for the rest of the week, and a vacation tour of six or eight weeks may atone for many months of sedentary life.

With the exception of deep-seated breast-coughs, “colds” may be nipped in the bud by a few hours of hard, sudorific work in the open air. It may be an heroic cure, requiring a good deal of will-force in cold weather, but it is an infallible and the only radical remedy. In half a day the nasal ducts and the perspiratory exhalants will throw off irritating matters which would defy the drug-doctor for a couple of weeks, or yield only to exercise their influence in another direction, for poison-remedies merely change the form of a disease.

The beneficial effect of out-door exercise is not limited to the respiratory organs: their quickened function reacts on the digestive apparatus, on the nervous system, and through the nerves, on the mind; true mental and physical vigor in any form can be maintained only on a liberal allowance of life-air; those who feed their lungs on miasma become strangers to that exuberant health which makes bare existence a luxury. After years of in-door life, the victims of melancholy, dyspepsia, and dull headaches come to accept their discomforts as the normal condition of man kind, but upon the first appearance of such disorders our instinct suggests the cause and the cure with an urgency which makes confinement in the atmosphere of our northern dwelling houses the greatest affliction of childhood.

If we reflect on the fact that our earth is surrounded by a respirable atmosphere of at least eight hundred million cubic miles, it seems a sad comment on the enlightenment of modem civilization that the unsatisfied thirst after life air should inflict more misery upon millions of our fellowmen than hunger and all the hardships of poverty combined. “On the day of judgment,” says Jean Paul, “God will per haps pardon you for starving your children when bread was so dear; but, if he should charge you with stinting them in his free air, what answer shall you make?” 

 Perfect health depends upon a daily supply of fresh air as much as on our daily bread; but within certain limits the human organism is capable of adapting itself to abnormal circumstances. A man may accustom himself to devour his weekly allowance of solid food at a single meal, and in a similar way the vitalizing elements of air and sunshine can be hoarded up allotropically, for all we know—for days, weeks, and months in advance. The Zooloo hunter who, after a six days’ fast, gets a chance to satisfy the cravings of his stomach, can not be expected to content himself with half-pint rations à la Luigi Cornaro, and in midsummer, after six months of sedentary life, a boy should get his fill of out-door exercises; let him drink sunlight at every pore, do not stint his allowance of oxygen, compensate him for very long arrears of woodland air and mountain-rambles. 

The craving of a thirsty wanderer after cold water is not an abnormal appetency, but a natural instinct, and can be indulged with perfect impunity; a bath in sun-warmed river water is healthy as long as it is enjoyable; South-Sea Islanders and the children of the Genoese fishermen spend whole afternoons in the surf, and-barring sharks and medusas— without fear of dangerous consequences. There is no harm in wet stockings as long as the feet are in motion; at home it is perhaps better to change them at once, though the Canadian lumbermen dry them on their logs before the camp-fire, or even in bed—i.e., under a pair of “Mackinaw blankets,” which blankets have often served as overcoats during the day, but in the course of the night are dried by the animal warmth like a packman wet sheets.

A refrigerating diet (vegetables, fruit, etc.) counteracts the effect of a high atmospheric temperature, but the calorific influence of meat and fat, combined with solar heat and bodily exertion, overcomes the organic power of resistance, the pyretic blood-changes produce congestion of the brain and sometimes instant death. I venture the assertion that in nineteen out of twenty cases of comatose sun-stroke it will be found that the victims were persons who had gone to work in the hot sun after a meal of greasy viands. One to two P.M. is the sunstroke-hour. 

Among the permanent benefits which young persons may derive from a pedestrian tour, it is not the least that they will mostly get rid of the night-air superstition. Sweet rest and pleasant dreams he knows not who has never slept under a Mexican live-oak tree on a bundle of fresh plucked Spanish-moss, or in the loft of a Tennessee cotton gin while the winds of the summer night play in draughts and counter-draughts through four open louvres. 

Enjoyable winter excursions are a privilege of the rich; still, a pair of good skates make a convenient pond or small river a great blessing. From a sanitary point of view, the neighborhood of larger streams is not so much of an advantage; besides being the terror of parents during the skating season, a big river is apt to render the contiguous lowlands more or less malarious, especially after every inundation. In snow-bound villages children have to depend mainly on in-door exercises; cold-air however, is a powerful tonic, and a two hours’ snow-ball fight will generally suffice to vitalize a juvenile constitution for a couple of days. Mountain air, too, is a peptic stimulant, and pedestrian excursions are doubly invigorating if they include a good deal of up-hill work. 

For those who wish to select their dwelling-place with regard to the hygienic interest of their children, the best location is, therefore, on the whole, the bank of a small river in the neighborhood of a large mountain-range.

From Health-Science-March-April-1982

Publications

Macfadden, Bernarr. Oswald, Felix L. (1900). Macfadden’s Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise: Nature’s Wonderful Remedies for the Cure of all Chronic and Acute Diseases. London: Bernarr Macfadden. https://archive.org/details/39002086348480.med.yale.edu. 234 pages. 

• This book is broken into three major parts:
  • Part 1: Fasting (physiological data, the one meal plan, dietetic, restrictions, protracted, fast, and an experience of a seven-day fast)
  • Part 2: Hydropathy (physiological data, the cold, water cure, air baths, climatic, sanitaria, ventilation). 
  • Part 3 Exercise (physiological, data, outdoor and indoor exercise, gymnastics, and free movement cures). 

Oswald, F. L. (1877). The Climatic Influence of Vegetation — A Plea for Our Forests. Popular Science Monthly 11: 385–390. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_11/August_1877/The_Climatic_Influence_of_Vegetation-A_Plea_for_our_Forests

• This 5-page article discusses rivers that have shrunk, decreased annual rainfall, and failed crops, all due to forest destruction. He shares that a country destitute of trees is avoided by birds and left to the ravages of locusts and other insects. To restore a forest is slow and laborious. He proposes legislation to protect the woods.

Oswald, Felix L. (1882). Physical Education; or The Health-Laws of Nature. New York: Appleton. https://archive.org/details/physicaleducatio00oswa. 276 pages.

• In this book, Dr. Oswald covers diet (a vegetable diet), indoor and outdoor life, gymnastics, clothing, sleep, recreation, remedial education, hygienic precautions, and popular fallacies.

Oswald, Felix L. (1883). The Remedies of Nature. Dyspepsia. The Popular Science Monthly, (July) 1883, 23, 303–317. (a). Page 10 -22. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_23/July_1883/The_Remedies_of_Nature_III

• In this article, Oswald discusses how the human body is self-regulating. The body’s automatic agencies generally suffice to counteract the disturbing cause. Drugs can rarely do more than change the form of the disease or postpone its crisis. Alcohol kills thousands each year. He shares how wide-open windows and being out in nature are excellent remedies. He includes keeping windows open to allow fresh air to come in. Diet should be nutritious but not stimulating. The first full meal should be taken after morning exercise.

Oswald, Felix L. (1886). Household Remedies for the Prevalent Disorders of the Human Organism. New York, Fowler & Wells Co. https://archive.org/details/householdremedie00oswa/page/n7/mode/2up. 229 pages.

• As the title suggests, this book focuses on health issues humanity deals with. Dr. Oswald discusses consumption, dyspepsia, climatic fevers, asthma, alcohol and enteric disorders, nervous maladies, Catarrh, pleurisy, croup, and other miscellaneous remedies.

Oswald, Felix. (1886). “Remedies of Nature – Enteric Disorders.” Popular Science Monthly, vol. 24 (DEC), no. No II, 1866, pp. 196-207,. Accessed 15 Mar. 24.

• In this article, Dr. Oswald shared that Asclepiades, a Greek Philosopher, created a unique course of exercise for every disorder of the human organism. He rejected medicines as a cure and stated that we risk mistaking the suppression of symptoms for the suppression of the disease. For example, chronic overeating produces a sick headache, so they applied a blister to the head.
• From this, we learned that numerous enteric disorders, or bowel complaints, are thus artificially developed.
• He discusses how to treat with a vegetable diet, thorough chewing, passive exercise, cold sponge and air baths, diarrhea, and fasting.
• He shares that adults should have two meals a day, drink cold spring water only, and strictly abstain from indigestible foods (e.g., cheese, rye, bread, sauerkraut, sausages, pickles, hard-boiled eggs, etc.). An occasional day of fasting will ensure the elimination of undigested food deposits.

Oswald, Felix L. (1887). The Poison Problem, or The Cause and Cure of Intemperance. New York: Appleton. https://archive.org/details/poisonproblemorc00oswarich. 154 pages.

• In Great Britain, the consumption of fermented and distilled liquors has increased at an average rate of three percent since 1850; in France, two percent; in Switzerland, five and a half percent; in northern Germany, the manufacture of malt liquors has doubled since 1866; and even in the United States, the consumption of intoxicating drinks of all kinds has advanced at a rate exceeding that of our rapid population growth by one fifth.
• Dr. Oswald notes that “temperate use” of alcohol is but the first stage of a progressive disease and that, with moderation failing, we must adopt the motto of ” Eradication.” A truce means defeat in the struggle against an evil that will reproduce its seed from the basis of any compromise. Removing (the cause) is easier than suppressing the symptoms, just as much as abstinence is easier than temperance.
• In this book, he covers the Secret of the alcohol habit, the causes of intemperance, the physiological effects of the poison habit, the cost of intemperance, alcohol, drugs, prohibition, and subjective remedies.

Oswald, Felix L. (1807). “Summer Refrigeration.” Health Science – Official Journal of the American Natural Hygiene Society, Inc. Timeless Teachings, 1 Aug. 1978, pp. 6-7. Excerpted from Dr. Oswald’s article, which originally appeared in the North American Review, September 1887, 145 (370) pp. 261-266. https://www.healthscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/V1-N5-Health-Science-august-1978.pdf

Oswald, Felix L. (1901). Vaccination a Crime: with Comments on Other Sanitary Superstitions. New York: Physical Culture Publishing Company. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zuus5cf5. 195 pages. 

Oswald, Felix L. (1905). Vitality: How to Acquire And Conserve It: a Symposium of the World’s Greatest Authorities On Hygiene, Physical Development, Breathing, Diet Hydropathy, And All the Forces That Tend to Promote And Preserve Vitality. New York: Health Pub. Co., 1905. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011267893. Pg 148 – 155.

• Dr. Oswald presents a chapter in this book entitled Gymnastics and Recreation. He shares that happiness is the normal condition of every living creature, for in Nature, every normal function is connected with a pleasurable sensation.
• In this article, he focuses on children, citing the importance of making your children happy and letting them live in harmony with nature. 

Oswald, F. L. (1978, August). Summer Refrigeration. Health Science – Official Journal of the American Natural Hygiene Society, Inc., V1(No 5), pg6-7.
https://www.healthscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/V1-N5-Health-Science-august-1978.pdf

• Excerpted from Dr. Oswald’s article, which originally appeared in the North American Review, September 1887, 145 (370) pp. 261-266.
• The excerpt from the “Health Science” journal discusses how modern civilization has adapted to winter while largely neglecting the discomfort of summer heat. It highlights the contrast between our winter fortresses and the oppressive summer conditions, suggesting that our indoor lifestyles exacerbate the heat problem. The text advocates for the development of artificial cooling solutions, positing that refrigeration could alleviate summer hardships much like heating does in winter. It emphasizes that while wild animals and indigenous people cope with heat through various natural behaviors, urban society lacks these adaptive strategies and should innovate ways to introduce cooler air into buildings. The author envisions a future where refrigeration becomes commonplace in homes and its antiseptic uses are recognized, comparing artificial cold to natural preservation methods and predicting a significant shift in how we manage heat and decay in our daily lives.

Popular Science Monthly. (1881). Physical Education. Volume 20/December 1881/Physical Education XII. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_20/December_1881/Physical_Education_XII

He discussed in this article:

• 1. The Leading-Strings Fallacy: From the moment a child is born, he is treated on the principle that all his instincts are essentially wrong and that Nature must be thwarted and counteracted in every possible way.
• 2. The Nostrum Fallacy: When a child complains of headache, lassitude, or lack of appetite, the nurse concludes that he must “take something.” If a young lady’s complexion grows paler and pastier daily, her mother will insist that she “get something” to purify her blood. If the baby squeals day and night, a doctor is sent for and is expected to “prescribe something.” 
• 3. The Stimulant Fallacy: Eight hours of healthy sleep are sufficient to restore the energy expended in an ordinary day’s work. The stimulant habit in all its forms—”exhilarating beverages,” “tonic medicines,” “prophylactic bitters,” etc.—is a dire delusion. A healthy man needs no artificial excitants; the vital principle in its normal vigor is an all-sufficient stimulus.
• 4. The Cold-Air Fallacy: Cold air is the general scapegoat of all sinners against Nature. When the knee-joints of the young debauchee begin to weaken, he suspects that he has “taken cold.” 
• The bracing influence of fresh air revives the drooping vitality. Nature avails herself of the chance to begin repairs; the lungs reveal their diseased condition and proceed to rid themselves of the accumulated impurities. 
• 5. The Fever Fallacy: Fevers are caused by the folly of aggravating the influence of the summer heat by superfluous clothing and calorific food (meat, greasy-made dishes, and ardent spirits) and not by fruit or cold water.
• 6. The Spa Fallacy: Mineral springs spas, impregnated with sufficient iron or sulfur to make one shockingly nauseous, must, therefore, be highly salubrious. Solitary mountain regions afflicted with such spas become the favorite resort of invalids; dyspeptics travel thousands of miles to reach a spring that tastes like a mixture of rotten eggs and turpentine.
• 7. The Ascetic Fallacy: A man of simple habits may be both happier and healthier than the lover of artificial luxuries, but the anti-naturalists make war upon earthly enjoyments as such; they try to suppress harmless as well as vicious pleasures; their aim is not the reduction hut the destruction of our natural desires.

The NHA wishes to remind the readers that nothing in this or other publications is intended to constitute medical treatment or advice. Readers should be aware that some previous publications do not reflect the NHA’s current health teachings or approach to health in several areas.

Our Mission

The mission of the National Health Association is to educate and empower individuals to understand that health results from healthy living. We recognize the integration of all aspects of health: personal, environmental, and social.

We communicate the benefits of a plant-based diet, exercise and rest, a healthy environment, psychological well-being, and when indicated, the use of fasting.