Broadcasting Our Health Message

Several months ago there came to us from the owner of the California Rural Network (B.C.,A., which comprises five stations in southern California) an invitation to present certain features of our health message on a weekly broadcast over these stations. Here's a report.

By LESTER H. LONERGAN, M.D

Several months ago there came to us from the owner of the California Rural Network (B.C.,A., which comprises five stations in southern California) an invitation to present certain features of our health message on a weekly broadcast over these stations. With this invitation came the request that we give special emphasis to the evidence available concerning the injurious effects of tobacco and beverage alcohol. A full teaching schedule and total lack of previous experience in this line of radio work made the success of such a venture ques­tionable. However, in spite of such apparent handicaps, it seemed that we could see God's hand back of this generous offer.

Accordingly, there was launched, on Decem­ber 12, 1948, a series of temperance and health broadcasts under the general title "The Foolish Things We Do," sponsored by the department of therapeutics at the Loma Linda division of the College of Medical Evangelists. These are fifteen-minute question-and-answer discussions at two-thirty Sunday afternoons. Medical stu­dents, dietitians, or nurses assist at the actual broadcast.

Plans are now in progress for a series of correspondence lessons on nutrition to be spon­sored by our School of Dietetics and offered over this local network. Although the response from listeners has not been large, it has been most encouraging. Each week mimeographed copies of the script are offered to those who write in their request. We are now sending ap­proximately one hundred copies. Occasionally our journal Life and Health is also offered on request.

It has been our experience that usually an hour or more is required in preparation for each minute on the air. Ten to twenty hours each week, plus an average of nearly ten hours of secretarial help, covers the labor involved.

The series on "The Foolish Things We Do," which- has now progressed to number twenty-three, includes the following scripts, some of which covered several days:

Tobacco

Beverage Alcohol

Nutrition

Processed Flours

Excessive Sugar, a Dietary Hazard

The Hazard of Obesity

America's Food Habits and Nutritional Deficiency

Our Wasteful Dietetic Habits

Worry

Accidental Poisoning in Childhood

Accidents in the Home

Trichinosis

Caffeine Beverages

Headache Sunburn

There are undoubtedly many other broad­casting stations scattered the world around where time would be gladly given for presenta­tion of topics on health and nutrition. If our health workers, physicians, dietitians, nurses, or others would contact their local stations, and outline to the manager the type of program available, it is apparent that this important avenue for the promulgation of our health mes­sage could be greatly expanded and developed.

Others of our health workers who are interested in this venture may also use portions or entire scripts freely, if they are deemed suitable to local conditions. Address your request for scripts to L. H. Lonergan, M.D., Department of Therapeutics. College of Medi­cal Evangelists, Loma Linda, California.


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By LESTER H. LONERGAN, M.D

August 1949

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