Child Nutrition

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22430, 17 June 1938, Page 10

Child Nutrition

It must be hoped that the Government will not find any difficulty in acceding to the request of the Dominion Council of the British Medical Association for an official investigation into child nutrition in Nfew Zealand. Although the council does not disclose the grounds for its request, it will not be doubted that they are adequate. There is already an abundance of evidence in official reports which suggests the conclusion that the physique of New Zealand children is not as good as it should be, having regard to the absence of serious poverty, the cheapness and variety of food, and the opportunities for outdoor recreation. For instance, the reports of the school medical officers, who every year examine many thousands of young children and teachers in training, provide definite proof of faulty nutrition, though the investigations are not sufficiently systematised to enable the extent of the evil to be estimated. Lack of knowledge on the part of parents and school authorities is, it may be suspected, mainly responsible for the situation that has arisen. In the first year or two of its life, the child is protected against unwise or inadequate feeding by the elaborate and admirable machinery of the Plunket Society. But in bringing up children from infancy to the age of entry into primary schools, parents are without expert guidance, although in this period diet is almost as important as it is in infancy. There is also, it appears, another gap after the child leaves the primary school, since the headmaster of the Christchurch Boys’ High School was informed by the Health Department a few months ago that it “ did not consider a medical examination “of secondary school pupils necessary.” On no higher grounds th&n those of economy, it is surely desirable that these gaps should be filled and provision for safeguarding the health of children made continuous. Half the benefit of the money spent on the Plunket system is wasted unless the young child is cared for as scientifically as is the baby.