CONDITIONS IN COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 252, 25 October 1933, Page 12

CONDITIONS IN COUNTRY.

"Country children generally, especially from good farming districts, attain a satisfactory standard of growth arid health," states the director of school hygiene, Dr. A. S. Petersen, in her annual report to the Minister of Health. "It has always ibeen noted by school medical officers, however, that' though their nutrition as a whole compares favourably with that of city children, marked malnutrition may occur in remote country districts, it is a popular fiction that the country child is necessarily possessed of superior advantages. Among the struggling population of the backblocks, houses are often poor and cramped, and sanitation non-existent. In dairying districts children may be employed early and late out of doors. Food may be monotonous, hastily prepared, and badly cooked; it is often deficient in vitamins and in body-building constituents. In New Zealand fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, eggs and cheese should be readily obtained and widely utilised.

"The compulsory attention exacted by the sharemilkers' cows often result in a distaste for milk. Dr. Henderson in his inquiry into the condition of rural school children found that 10 per cent of sharemilkers' children never touched milk. The amount of outside work done by the mother e.g., (share milking) often detracts from her efficiency in the house. Fatigue and isolation, the struggle against poverty and her own limited knowledge depress her further. For such women the telephone and radio, if they can be afforded, are a definite aid to mental and physical health.

"There are, of course, fortunately i n this country, thousands of competent cheerful housewives, whose intelligent management and self-denial are one of its most valuable assets. While all authorities stress the supreme importance of maternal efficiency, the scope of this is necessarily modified by the ability of the father to provide material requirements for his children and in his hands often to an even greater decree than jtlie mother's is the responsibility of directing their abilities and energies."