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The place of propaganda in the national fitness campaign
past twelve months we have commenced to supply poster frames of a similar shape and size, in order that local authorities may increase the number of posters displayed, or begin this form of propaganda in areas where no Empire Marketing Board frames are available. I should like to mention that from time to time in various parts of the country I see old, unused frames on school walls and public buildings. They look unsightly, and I am sure that if officers of local authorities would survey their districts for unused frames, and would display these attractive posters, which cost only 7s. 6d. a set, they would not only be carrying out valuable health education, but would also be improving the appearance of their districts. Since our last annual meeting we have co-operated with the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, the Housing Centre, the Hospitals Association, the Royal Sanitary Institute and the National Advisory Council for Physical Training and Recreation, in the production of posters. Many of you have doubtless seen the five monthly sets of " Get Fit and Keep Fit " posters which have recently been displayed. To my mind they have been extremely pleasing and attractive, and I am glad to say that local authorities throughout the country have expressed great appreciation of them. Throughout the year there has been a continuous demand for other posters and publicity material issued by the Council. We have been pleased to co-operate with the Ministry of Health in their campaign to advertise the facilities under the Rural Housing Workers Act. Sound advances on any particular subject are based on a survey of all available knowledge. Such a survey of health education machinery was completed by the Council at the beginning of the year, and was published in a Year Book which is now in use in public health departments and in the offices of various health associations throughout the country. Our monthly publication, Better tlealth, is now also issued in a new style which will, we hope, add to its popularity and success. Finally, I am happy to be able to report, as I have done in each of the last five years, that a larger number of delegates has been appointed to this Conference than on any previous occasion.
local authorities and the Government Departments concerned. Propaganda of this kind is necessary because it is an unfortunate fact that once childhood is passed, people tend to slip into a rut, to become fixed in their habits and their way of thought and disinclined to adventure, even for their own good, beyond the normal round of their day-to-day activities. Only by the wise use of propaganda and advertisement can they be stimulated to interest in a new conception--and to a great many people the idea that the health services should be used by them is a new conception. So too is the idea that they might improve their chances in this highly competitive and materialistic world, and find a new and a happier way of life, if they took active steps to keep their bodies not only healthy but really fit. Of course the Council of which I have the honour to be Chairman is not yet in a position to " sell " to any large extent a big addition to the material means to fitness--by that I mean swimming baths, community centres, playing fields and other facilities. It is part of the function of the Council to see that facilities of this kind are made much more generally available than they are at present, but a task of this magnitude cannot be accomplished overnight and it will be some time yet before we shall be able to extend existing facilities and thus bring physical recreation in all its forms within the reach of everyone. But it is not too soon for us to look prudently ahead and to lay our plans for nation-wide publicity campaigns which will stimulate the desire to use the opportunities which have been provided for them and encourage local authorities to extend and perfect them. The value of advertisement under modern conditions can hardly be questioned. As the " high pressure " salesmen of another country put it : " He who whispers down a well About the goods he has to sell, Never makes as many dollars As he who climbs a tree and hollers."
We shall not make as many people fit and healthy as we want to, unless we use all the methods of modern publicity to put our message across as powerfully as possible. We have considerable difficulties to face. I have already mentioned the lethargy with which most people THE PLACE OF PROPAGANDA IN THE seem to be affected where their own physical well-being is concerned, provided no painful crisis has arisen. NATIONAL FITNESS CAMPAIGN No doubt people are well aware of the benefits which Opening address by the Right lion, Lord Aberdare, accrue from physical fitness; but it is quite another Chairman, National Advisory Councilfor Physical Training thing for them to behave in the light of that knowledge. and Recreation. That is to say, in the realm of health many people may I understand that you wish to hear something of the know what to do, but they do not do it. way in which we on the National Advisory Council are This is where propaganda comes in ; it is not only a approaching a problem which, although different in question of providing people with knowledge but also aspect, is fundamentally the same as that in which the of persuading them to act on what they know to be true. Central Council for Health Education have for ten This is the great problem which we who are concerned years been interested. with this campaign for national fitness have to solve-Your efforts, now culminating in the campaign which how to make people do what they know to be right in the Prime Minister launched here yesterday, have been matters of health and physical well-being. directed to educating people to the value of good health Other problems confront us too--not so serious and to encouraging them to make the fullest and the perhaps, but none the less formidable. We have combest possible use of the health services devoted to petition to meet and this competition is of two kinds. preventive and curative medicine, which have been First we are faced with a powerful vested interest in built up over the years by the painstaking work of the the shape of firms, who have long been endeavouring
11
everyone who has the opportunity to do, what are commonly called, physical jerks before breakfast, and in any event physical jerks are not necessarily everyone's salvation. What we must do is persuade the individual that life becomes a different affair when he is well and healthy and his body tuned to its best pitch of physical efficiency. We can and shall suggest some of the many ways of getting and keeping fit, but the individual will be left to follow his own bent and choose the way which most appeals to him. Briefly put, our immediate task is to arouse throughout the country a greater will to be fit. We are not, as I have already indicated, yet in a position to arouse a great demand for facilities ; the demand in many cases already exceeds the supply. The time for propaganda directed towards the use of facilities will come later. At the moment our policy has been dictated by the consideration that we should prepare the ground for more intensive efforts. We feel that we should go slowly at first, lest we now arouse a response which cannot be met, and then later, when the time is ripe, find that, having once cried " wolf," our propaganda does not have its full effect. We are therefore beginning quietly with a display of posters in the provinces and in London, the object of which is to bring the idea of fitness into the public consciousness. Posters are generally recognised to be an effective means of " reminder " advertising and as our immediate aim is somewhat analogous to" reminder" advertising, posters at the moment seemed to be the appropriate medium. Of course, as our work develops no form of advertising which gives an adequate return can be ignored. The films and the newspapers, for example, must play their part. We have not as yet embarked on film production but a series of films on physical fitness in relation to everyday life have been produced by Gaumont British Instructional, and we are considering how we can make these films, along with the others relating to the various forms of sports, games and athletics, which already exist, more easily and generally available to nontheatrical audiences. But no matter how complete a propaganda campaign we conduct centrally, it will fail of its full effect if it is not backed up by what I might call " field work." Our Area Committees, of course, are to engage in their own localities in arousing interest and stimulating enthusiasm It is of paramount importance to have honest and not but I have in mind something more than that. There meretricious propaganda about anything so valuable as must be talks and lectures on health and fitness and physical fitness. We must be sure that all we say about demonstrations of physical recreation and indoor games, fitness, especially when we say it as a national organisa- which, attractively presented, will catch and hold the tion with responsibilities both to the nation and to the interest of the general public. M~ny of the national Government, is true, is unambiguous and can stand organisatioiis C0ncerned withthe welfare of youth could critical analysis. Speaking as a layman I should say help us greatly here by arranging to show people by that nothing damages an advertised product so much demonstrations of this sort, by swimming galas and as the discovery that what is said about it is untrue and sports meetings, what part they are playing in the that the advertiser has been more concerned to exploit movement towards individual and national fitness. the susceptibility of the public than to expound the real Some means too must be found of ensuring that physical recreation occupies an appropriate and submerits of his product. Health and fitness are of supreme value and we need stantial place in the health weeks which you encourage not be afraid of exploiting people's " suggestibility" local authorities to arrange. And as a natural corollary about them, provided we recommend them to tread to this, we must lose no opportunity which presents paths which really lead to health and fitness. But we itself of taking part in any national or regional exhibition, must be careful that we do not lay emphasis on any one which in any way concerns itself with the problems of thing as being the salvation of the individual. It is not health and of right living.
to persuade the nation that health and fitness come from the use of this product or that. I cast no reflection whatever upon the intrinsic merits of any of these products, but the difficulty from our point of view is that this type of advertising panders to human inertia. It is so much less troublesome to take something from a bottle than to play a hard game of tennis or take a vigorous walk in the country that we must take great care to make it plain, in all our propaganda, that by active exercise, and active exercise alone, can physical fitness in any real sense of the term be attained. Physical fitness means one's way of life, and depends on one's own activity and initiative, not on drugs or elixirs. Then there is competition which we face from the lure of passive entertainments of all kinds. We are anxious to see people playing games themselves. Many people find watching others play a much easier business. Our propaganda must in part be directed to overcoming the national and deeply rooted idea that it is the acme of sport and sportsmanship to form part of a throng cheering on the physical activities of others. We must also see that we are in a position to meet on equal terms the attractions provided by the cinema and other similar entertainments. By propaganda we hope to encourage people to go to community centres, swimming baths and recreation grounds but, when they get there, they must find that the expectations they have been led to entertain must be fulfilled. This means two things : firstly, that the facilities themselves must be attractive, secondly that our propaganda and advertising must be honest as well as attractive--or should I say " alluring " ? A campaign for fitness must be direct and to the point and it must be positive. By that I mean that it must concentrate on the attractiveness of health and well-being and must avoid reference to the penalties and misery of ill-health. But however charmingly propaganda and advertising are worded, the points they make must be attractive and convincing even when they are stripped of magical phrases and reduced to words of one syllable. The following slogan is quite nicely worded and perhaps contains a grain of truth : - " Cyanide of Potassium offers you immediate relief from all your troubles," but reduced to words of one syllable it means : - " This stuff will kill you at once."
12
I hope I have made clear that we on the National see that everyone would get a fair chance and that Council are very conscious of the great part which there should be no overlapping. If any district should judicious propaganda has to play in our work. We are be neglected, claims should be put in to the Area to a large extent breaking new ground. We are in fact, Committee in good time. for the first time in this country, tackling the problem Councillor Tom Benfold, J.P. (Vice-Chairman, Durof leisure and the right use of leisure with an official ham C.C. Itealth Committee) asked how it was possible status and with the backing of national money. It is a to prepare a physically fit nation under present economic heavy responsibility and while the position is fraught conditions. One would have thought after the experiwith many dangers there is the prospect of doing much ence of the war period when so many young men were good to encourage us. I am confident, and I believe declared to be physically unfit that the leaders of the that my colleagues too are confident, that if we proceed nation would have got down to the cause and sought to slowly and carefully and with a full sense of our responsi- remedy the defect. In Durham County the Council bilities we shall succeed before too long, not only in had sought to build up a highly efficient health service, making people more aware of the advantages and but you could not get the best results when there were benefits of a state of vigorous health but in opening up thousands of young men who have been unemployed to them, through the exercise of their bodies, a new way for years. In the last year there was spent £1,500,000 of life and a means whereby they can achieve and retain on Public Assistance, equal to a rate of 8s. 8d. in the £, health, happiness and the joy of living. and Public Assistance was not to give the people In conclusion, I would draw your attention to the adequate maintenance but merely to relieve destitution. fact that success, in this matter, depends not alone or Miss Voysey (Home and School Council of Great specially on us at the centre. It depends to an even Britain) drew attention to the splendid medium for greater extent on those of you who represent local authorities and voluntary movements--touching the life health propaganda work provided by meetings of of the people more closely than we ever can. National parents and teachers organised by individual schools. publicity campaigns may play a useful part but real Most of these are held under the auspices of an organised progress requires the more intimate and sustained Parent-Teacher Association. Such associations are education of public opinion, which needs local genius, formed with the object of benefiting the child, and one is born of local conviction and is adapted to local of the first subjects for discussion is naturally that of health. This was taken both generally and in relation circumstances. to the health services provided, as well as in specific So I would appeal to you all--and especially to those who represent local authorities, for co-operation in this aspects. An immediate result of these meetings and talks, great national task. Let us be ambitious to provide for everyone a higher standard of local equipment and to which are usually given by medical officers, doctors, set before them a higher ideal of physical fitness--not and health experts generally, was an increased interest in the child's health record, and markedly improved as an end in itself but as the means to a fuller life. attendance and follow-up at medical and dental inspections. DISCUSSION. Dr. C. L. Katial (Chairman, Health Committee, Mr. J. H. Caesar-4~ordon (Essex C.C.) paid tribute Finsbury Met. B.) said that they had listened with great to the moderation and practicability of Lord Aberdare's interest to the speeches of the Prime Minister, the address, and said that he was not so much concerned Minister of Health and other able spokesmen of the with the position of the county councils in the matter, National Government at the inauguration of the Health as they had wider financial scope than the smaller Campaign, and had been most gratified to note the bodies, who were necessarily handicapped by the already impartiality of their tone. There was no partisan or heavy demands on the ratepayers. He was anxious to party spirit in the Government's present campaign. All know whether it was considered essential that large those engaged in its organisation were obviously moved sums of money should be spent in tile elaborate lay- with a most pressing and sincere desire to revive and out of playing fields. The cost was often a deterrent in reorganise at all costs the health education of the nation. these enterprises. The provision of costly gymnasium The largeness of their vision had led them to lay aside equipment would be unnecessary if suitable arrange- the fetters of orthodoxy and traditional prejudice and ments could be made for physical drill for all adults, and to appeal for the co-operation not only of experts in t t e he suggested that school playgrounds should be made field of preventive and curative medicine, but also of available for such purposes in non-school hours. competent members of the whole community, regardless Lord Aberdare (in reply) said that Area Committees of party or profession. This approach bore the stamp would investigate the special needs of each district and of greatness which promised success.
P R I N T E D I N GREAT B R I T A I N BY H . R. GRUBB~ L T D . , CROYDON.
local authorities and the Government Departments concerned. Propaganda of this kind is necessary because it is an unfortunate fact that once childhood is passed, people tend to slip into a rut, to become fixed in their habits and their way of thought and disinclined to adventure, even for their own good, beyond the normal round of their day-to-day activities. Only by the wise use of propaganda and advertisement can they be stimulated to interest in a new conception--and to a great many people the idea that the health services should be used by them is a new conception. So too is the idea that they might improve their chances in this highly competitive and materialistic world, and find a new and a happier way of life, if they took active steps to keep their bodies not only healthy but really fit. Of course the Council of which I have the honour to be Chairman is not yet in a position to " sell " to any large extent a big addition to the material means to fitness--by that I mean swimming baths, community centres, playing fields and other facilities. It is part of the function of the Council to see that facilities of this kind are made much more generally available than they are at present, but a task of this magnitude cannot be accomplished overnight and it will be some time yet before we shall be able to extend existing facilities and thus bring physical recreation in all its forms within the reach of everyone. But it is not too soon for us to look prudently ahead and to lay our plans for nation-wide publicity campaigns which will stimulate the desire to use the opportunities which have been provided for them and encourage local authorities to extend and perfect them. The value of advertisement under modern conditions can hardly be questioned. As the " high pressure " salesmen of another country put it : " He who whispers down a well About the goods he has to sell, Never makes as many dollars As he who climbs a tree and hollers."
We shall not make as many people fit and healthy as we want to, unless we use all the methods of modern publicity to put our message across as powerfully as possible. We have considerable difficulties to face. I have already mentioned the lethargy with which most people THE PLACE OF PROPAGANDA IN THE seem to be affected where their own physical well-being is concerned, provided no painful crisis has arisen. NATIONAL FITNESS CAMPAIGN No doubt people are well aware of the benefits which Opening address by the Right lion, Lord Aberdare, accrue from physical fitness; but it is quite another Chairman, National Advisory Councilfor Physical Training thing for them to behave in the light of that knowledge. and Recreation. That is to say, in the realm of health many people may I understand that you wish to hear something of the know what to do, but they do not do it. way in which we on the National Advisory Council are This is where propaganda comes in ; it is not only a approaching a problem which, although different in question of providing people with knowledge but also aspect, is fundamentally the same as that in which the of persuading them to act on what they know to be true. Central Council for Health Education have for ten This is the great problem which we who are concerned years been interested. with this campaign for national fitness have to solve-Your efforts, now culminating in the campaign which how to make people do what they know to be right in the Prime Minister launched here yesterday, have been matters of health and physical well-being. directed to educating people to the value of good health Other problems confront us too--not so serious and to encouraging them to make the fullest and the perhaps, but none the less formidable. We have combest possible use of the health services devoted to petition to meet and this competition is of two kinds. preventive and curative medicine, which have been First we are faced with a powerful vested interest in built up over the years by the painstaking work of the the shape of firms, who have long been endeavouring
11
everyone who has the opportunity to do, what are commonly called, physical jerks before breakfast, and in any event physical jerks are not necessarily everyone's salvation. What we must do is persuade the individual that life becomes a different affair when he is well and healthy and his body tuned to its best pitch of physical efficiency. We can and shall suggest some of the many ways of getting and keeping fit, but the individual will be left to follow his own bent and choose the way which most appeals to him. Briefly put, our immediate task is to arouse throughout the country a greater will to be fit. We are not, as I have already indicated, yet in a position to arouse a great demand for facilities ; the demand in many cases already exceeds the supply. The time for propaganda directed towards the use of facilities will come later. At the moment our policy has been dictated by the consideration that we should prepare the ground for more intensive efforts. We feel that we should go slowly at first, lest we now arouse a response which cannot be met, and then later, when the time is ripe, find that, having once cried " wolf," our propaganda does not have its full effect. We are therefore beginning quietly with a display of posters in the provinces and in London, the object of which is to bring the idea of fitness into the public consciousness. Posters are generally recognised to be an effective means of " reminder " advertising and as our immediate aim is somewhat analogous to" reminder" advertising, posters at the moment seemed to be the appropriate medium. Of course, as our work develops no form of advertising which gives an adequate return can be ignored. The films and the newspapers, for example, must play their part. We have not as yet embarked on film production but a series of films on physical fitness in relation to everyday life have been produced by Gaumont British Instructional, and we are considering how we can make these films, along with the others relating to the various forms of sports, games and athletics, which already exist, more easily and generally available to nontheatrical audiences. But no matter how complete a propaganda campaign we conduct centrally, it will fail of its full effect if it is not backed up by what I might call " field work." Our Area Committees, of course, are to engage in their own localities in arousing interest and stimulating enthusiasm It is of paramount importance to have honest and not but I have in mind something more than that. There meretricious propaganda about anything so valuable as must be talks and lectures on health and fitness and physical fitness. We must be sure that all we say about demonstrations of physical recreation and indoor games, fitness, especially when we say it as a national organisa- which, attractively presented, will catch and hold the tion with responsibilities both to the nation and to the interest of the general public. M~ny of the national Government, is true, is unambiguous and can stand organisatioiis C0ncerned withthe welfare of youth could critical analysis. Speaking as a layman I should say help us greatly here by arranging to show people by that nothing damages an advertised product so much demonstrations of this sort, by swimming galas and as the discovery that what is said about it is untrue and sports meetings, what part they are playing in the that the advertiser has been more concerned to exploit movement towards individual and national fitness. the susceptibility of the public than to expound the real Some means too must be found of ensuring that physical recreation occupies an appropriate and submerits of his product. Health and fitness are of supreme value and we need stantial place in the health weeks which you encourage not be afraid of exploiting people's " suggestibility" local authorities to arrange. And as a natural corollary about them, provided we recommend them to tread to this, we must lose no opportunity which presents paths which really lead to health and fitness. But we itself of taking part in any national or regional exhibition, must be careful that we do not lay emphasis on any one which in any way concerns itself with the problems of thing as being the salvation of the individual. It is not health and of right living.
to persuade the nation that health and fitness come from the use of this product or that. I cast no reflection whatever upon the intrinsic merits of any of these products, but the difficulty from our point of view is that this type of advertising panders to human inertia. It is so much less troublesome to take something from a bottle than to play a hard game of tennis or take a vigorous walk in the country that we must take great care to make it plain, in all our propaganda, that by active exercise, and active exercise alone, can physical fitness in any real sense of the term be attained. Physical fitness means one's way of life, and depends on one's own activity and initiative, not on drugs or elixirs. Then there is competition which we face from the lure of passive entertainments of all kinds. We are anxious to see people playing games themselves. Many people find watching others play a much easier business. Our propaganda must in part be directed to overcoming the national and deeply rooted idea that it is the acme of sport and sportsmanship to form part of a throng cheering on the physical activities of others. We must also see that we are in a position to meet on equal terms the attractions provided by the cinema and other similar entertainments. By propaganda we hope to encourage people to go to community centres, swimming baths and recreation grounds but, when they get there, they must find that the expectations they have been led to entertain must be fulfilled. This means two things : firstly, that the facilities themselves must be attractive, secondly that our propaganda and advertising must be honest as well as attractive--or should I say " alluring " ? A campaign for fitness must be direct and to the point and it must be positive. By that I mean that it must concentrate on the attractiveness of health and well-being and must avoid reference to the penalties and misery of ill-health. But however charmingly propaganda and advertising are worded, the points they make must be attractive and convincing even when they are stripped of magical phrases and reduced to words of one syllable. The following slogan is quite nicely worded and perhaps contains a grain of truth : - " Cyanide of Potassium offers you immediate relief from all your troubles," but reduced to words of one syllable it means : - " This stuff will kill you at once."
12
I hope I have made clear that we on the National see that everyone would get a fair chance and that Council are very conscious of the great part which there should be no overlapping. If any district should judicious propaganda has to play in our work. We are be neglected, claims should be put in to the Area to a large extent breaking new ground. We are in fact, Committee in good time. for the first time in this country, tackling the problem Councillor Tom Benfold, J.P. (Vice-Chairman, Durof leisure and the right use of leisure with an official ham C.C. Itealth Committee) asked how it was possible status and with the backing of national money. It is a to prepare a physically fit nation under present economic heavy responsibility and while the position is fraught conditions. One would have thought after the experiwith many dangers there is the prospect of doing much ence of the war period when so many young men were good to encourage us. I am confident, and I believe declared to be physically unfit that the leaders of the that my colleagues too are confident, that if we proceed nation would have got down to the cause and sought to slowly and carefully and with a full sense of our responsi- remedy the defect. In Durham County the Council bilities we shall succeed before too long, not only in had sought to build up a highly efficient health service, making people more aware of the advantages and but you could not get the best results when there were benefits of a state of vigorous health but in opening up thousands of young men who have been unemployed to them, through the exercise of their bodies, a new way for years. In the last year there was spent £1,500,000 of life and a means whereby they can achieve and retain on Public Assistance, equal to a rate of 8s. 8d. in the £, health, happiness and the joy of living. and Public Assistance was not to give the people In conclusion, I would draw your attention to the adequate maintenance but merely to relieve destitution. fact that success, in this matter, depends not alone or Miss Voysey (Home and School Council of Great specially on us at the centre. It depends to an even Britain) drew attention to the splendid medium for greater extent on those of you who represent local authorities and voluntary movements--touching the life health propaganda work provided by meetings of of the people more closely than we ever can. National parents and teachers organised by individual schools. publicity campaigns may play a useful part but real Most of these are held under the auspices of an organised progress requires the more intimate and sustained Parent-Teacher Association. Such associations are education of public opinion, which needs local genius, formed with the object of benefiting the child, and one is born of local conviction and is adapted to local of the first subjects for discussion is naturally that of health. This was taken both generally and in relation circumstances. to the health services provided, as well as in specific So I would appeal to you all--and especially to those who represent local authorities, for co-operation in this aspects. An immediate result of these meetings and talks, great national task. Let us be ambitious to provide for everyone a higher standard of local equipment and to which are usually given by medical officers, doctors, set before them a higher ideal of physical fitness--not and health experts generally, was an increased interest in the child's health record, and markedly improved as an end in itself but as the means to a fuller life. attendance and follow-up at medical and dental inspections. DISCUSSION. Dr. C. L. Katial (Chairman, Health Committee, Mr. J. H. Caesar-4~ordon (Essex C.C.) paid tribute Finsbury Met. B.) said that they had listened with great to the moderation and practicability of Lord Aberdare's interest to the speeches of the Prime Minister, the address, and said that he was not so much concerned Minister of Health and other able spokesmen of the with the position of the county councils in the matter, National Government at the inauguration of the Health as they had wider financial scope than the smaller Campaign, and had been most gratified to note the bodies, who were necessarily handicapped by the already impartiality of their tone. There was no partisan or heavy demands on the ratepayers. He was anxious to party spirit in the Government's present campaign. All know whether it was considered essential that large those engaged in its organisation were obviously moved sums of money should be spent in tile elaborate lay- with a most pressing and sincere desire to revive and out of playing fields. The cost was often a deterrent in reorganise at all costs the health education of the nation. these enterprises. The provision of costly gymnasium The largeness of their vision had led them to lay aside equipment would be unnecessary if suitable arrange- the fetters of orthodoxy and traditional prejudice and ments could be made for physical drill for all adults, and to appeal for the co-operation not only of experts in t t e he suggested that school playgrounds should be made field of preventive and curative medicine, but also of available for such purposes in non-school hours. competent members of the whole community, regardless Lord Aberdare (in reply) said that Area Committees of party or profession. This approach bore the stamp would investigate the special needs of each district and of greatness which promised success.
P R I N T E D I N GREAT B R I T A I N BY H . R. GRUBB~ L T D . , CROYDON.