For the first time since the existence of penicillin, New Zealand’s National Health Board is recommending we take vitamins.

This seems an odd move for medical science, with their hitherto unrelenting promotion of synthetic drugs and equally unabashed ridicule of natural vitamin supplements – particularly vitamin C which to those with any common sense (medical profession therefore excluded) is understood to be a superb way to boost one’s immune system thereby improving the ability to ward off illness yet unlike prescription drugs is not an unequivocal remedy and as we know if there is one thing those medical folk like it’s their one-pill-fixes-all solutions…

So does this mean National Health, amid this heavily prescribed and anti-biotic nation of ours, is actually dictating that Kiwis jump on board the vitamin wagon and start self-helping?

…Let’s not get carried away: in fact the one pill medical science is now conceding Kiwis mighty need to be popping over winter is vitamin D…

What is peculiar about the above ‘professional recommendation’ is that these respected medical boffins are claiming the sun’s rays are providing inadequate vitamin D, at a time throughout history where ‘the sun’s rays’ have never been more powerful.

…Medical science maintains that during these winter months where the strength of the sun is less with ultimately fewer sunlight hours, vitamin D supplements will provide people with that extra boost of mirth, leading to an overall increased feeling of wellbeing, ordinarily derived from natural sunlight…

Never once during the aforementioned ‘recommendation’ was there mention of the more obvious option: ‘making a conscious effort to get outdoors more and increase one’s sun exposure’; but then, medical science has always been more about ‘fixing the issue with a pill’ than ‘preventing the issue through prudent health management’.

…I recall ten or so years back when hoodie sweatshirts were first capturing the appeal of New Zealand’s youth, there was one ‘health professional’ who came forward with her terribly dreary opinion that this variety of casual-wear would be ‘detrimental to youthful development’ as the hoods in question ‘severely cut down on the amount of sun’ to which these trendsetting ragamuffins were exposed…

Many women use a daily body lotion that will in fact contain some element of sunscreen yet, instead of recommending the reduction of sun-reduction, in keeping with the fashion New Zealand Health seems still to be encouraging sun avoidance while at the same time promoting an oral intake of the very vitamin lost through that sun avoidance.

…Of course the real issue as I perceived it was that all those years ago, hoodie sweatshirts with their ability to render a wearer incognito therefore sinister, was something of an intimidation to older, less hip, street wanderers.

The issue as I perceive it now, medical science is taking yet another health concern which has a clear self-help remedy, and promoting the concept of medication.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Vitty Mann

Photography by Sal Phelp