Nutrition and Food Supplies
1936-09 1936 1930s 33 pages : illustration These figures have provoked a good deal of interest and controversy and have been attacked by those who prefer the complacency of the Ministry of Health Reports. Our view is that Sir John Orr’s figures do not exaggerate the evil of underfeeding: t...
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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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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/8AF4CE7B-88E6-4D66-A296-1BB2B23D3A8C http://hdl.handle.net/10796/2F7AB137-DD1D-4194-9183-97EA4567EF45 |
| Summary: | 1936-09
1936
1930s
33 pages : illustration
These figures have provoked a good deal of interest and controversy and have been attacked by those who prefer the complacency of the Ministry of Health Reports. Our view is that Sir John Orr’s figures do not exaggerate the evil of underfeeding: that in certain respects they even underestimate it. The Average and the Actual There is a danger in applying an average to millions of people, of assuming that the average represents the normal actual conditions of the majority. But every housewife must spend her own income, not an abstract average. If three neighbours have incomes of £5, £2 10s. and £1 10s. respectively, there are two of them who will not find comfort in the statement that the “average” income of the three is £3 a week. Among the 4½ million whose expenditure on food is estimated as “averaging” 4/- per head per week, there are tens of thousands who have a good deal less to spend on food. LABOUR WOMEN’S INQUIRY The Women’s Sections of the Labour Party began in February of this year an inquiry to ascertain how much or how little of the chief body-building and protective foods can be bought by working-class housewives at different income ranges. An analysis of the first 1,000 budgets received appears as an appendix to this pamphlet. These budgets reveal that many unemployed families have no more than from 2/- to 3/6 per head per week for food: that families on low wages very often are on as low a standard as the unemployed: and that there is a close relation between the consumption of the more essential foods and income. As the amount per person available for food decreases, the purchase of milk, butter, eggs, fresh fruit 13
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |