“No Evidence Of Benefit From Milk In Schools”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29459, 10 March 1961, Page 22

“No Evidence Of Benefit From Milk In Schools”

(From Our Own Reporter;

WELLINGTON, March 9. “There is no definite evidence whatever that milk in schools—costing the country £707.000 this year—has been a significant factor in building up or maintaining the physique of our school children," says Mr Martin Nestor, chief research officer of the National Party in a statement prepared for the guidance of party members.

Mr Nestor said statistics on malnutrition in New Zealand school children, collected by the Health Department for manv years, showed that for a number of years during which the scheme was operating. the incidence of malnutrition among school children was considerably higher than in most of the years before the scheme was introduced. “What is still more remarkable about the Health Department’s findings is. however, that for many years past, the milk-in-schools scheme has not operated in Invercargill but the statistics show no significant difference in the occurrence of defects in general, of malnutrition. or of dental caries between Invercargill and the rest of New Zealand. “In fact they tend to indicate that the defect rate in. Invercargill children is less than in the rest of New Zealand.

“The Invercargill children have shared in the increase in height and weight found in the rest of the Dominion." Mr Nestor said he recalled that there was a good deal of emotionalism associated with the introduction of the scheme which was a brain child of the first Labour Government. conceived at a time when Labour’s main political weapon- was the hardships endured by the people in the slump under the former (Forbes-Coates', Government. “That emotional atmosphere has long since dissipated, and more objective viewpoints on milk in schools have been put forward. “Manv years have passed since it could be argued that the provision of miik in schools served to alleviate hunger. “The only point at issue

qow is whether it served a special and necessary purpose in building up the physique of children. "There is conflict of evidence among experts as to the value of milk to children, except that there appears to be general agreement that the consumption of milk in the home is extolled.

"Whether normal consumption of milk in the home should be supplemented in any way is. however, a matter which is unlikely ever to be settled.”