Good Eating Habits

A youngster eats his food too fast and gets a stomach ache. The next day, he eats it slower and does fine.

After looking at a lot of these educational films from the 1950s, I have become filled with a sense of awe at their ability to focus on the trivial in the face of disaster or the contemptuous tone of the narrator. Here we get a simple lesson: don't wolf down your food nor spend all your money on candy. This takes ten minutes.

Given this was a Coronet film, it was intended for the class room. Did anyone ever see this? I would guess so. Coronet produced films from 1941 through the late 1960s, so their product must have sold to schools. Yet their short, obvious messages, backed by people with degrees and titles, never stopped anyone from making any of these mistakes, nor lingered in the memory longer than a mother's "I told you so. Next time..." And there would be a next time. It's not that we didn't know all these things. We simply didn't care. Nor did being forced to watch these films in the class room or at assembly, narrated by a stranger who told us these things that we knew, make us care. Fifty years later, looking at this film, it makes me yearn for a candy bar.

It's an American government educational film. It's a 50's nuclear family. Bill is the younger son. He has a stomach ache. The film recounts his eating habits over the day. He's rushing and guzzling like crazy. He's stuffing himself and eating a lot of junk food. By supper time, he has no appetite and his stomach ache is starting. After learning his lesson, he's eating slower and healthier.

This has a doctor as the advisor and that's what you get here. It's a doctor from 50's telling the audience to take smaller bites. It's charmingly old school. It's a lot less educational and much more funny.