Nutrition and Food Supplies
1936-09 1936 1930s 33 pages : illustration ‘normal’ weight for a fairly long time, even though a state of anaemia and debility has already set in.” (Report on “Nutrition and Public Health,” League of Nations, June, 1935). Evidence of Malnutrition...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
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London : The Labour Party
September 1936
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/3D8B69BC-E080-4091-A619-7F96E3E93495 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/F3ABB917-FAD2-4FE4-A4FD-5707565DD8C5 |
| Summary: | 1936-09
1936
1930s
33 pages : illustration
‘normal’ weight for a fairly long time, even though a state of anaemia and debility has already set in.” (Report on “Nutrition and Public Health,” League of Nations, June, 1935). Evidence of Malnutrition The Ministry of Health and the Board of Education give too much weight to the more optimistic local reports which state there is little or no evidence of malnutrition, and they fail to reflect the growing dissatisfaction with the statistical results of routine examinations, nor do they emphasise sufficiently the views of those medical officers who produce evidence of increasing malnutrition. There is no space to quote from Reports, but many Medical Officers report an increase in malnutrition among mothers and school children; and a number have definitely associated maternal deaths and ill-health, an increase of rickets and tuberculosis, and the prevalence of anaemia, with prolonged poverty. Other significant statements which frequently occur are that the provision of school meals has prevented serious deterioration of the children’s health; and that the health of the children has been fairly well maintained in spite of poverty, but only at the expense of the mothers. FOOD AND HEALTH While it would be most desirable to have some generally accepted standard for assessing nutrition, it would be still more useful from the point of view of improving the nation’s health, if the public medical services would concentrate on finding out the extent of underfeeding among those who come under their notice. Importance of Right Diet It is argued by those who do not care to hear words like “underfeeding,” that poverty and inadequate diet are not the only causes of malnutrition. We can agree that there are factors not necessarily associated with poverty — e.g., overwork, mental anxiety or previous disease — which affect nutrition; and also that malnutrition may be caused by over-feeding as well as by under-feeding! But most of the “other causes than poverty” which are 6
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |