Aboriginal children: doctor disquieted

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33453, 7 February 1974, Page 13

Aboriginal children: doctor disquieted

(S.Z.KA.•Reuter—Copyrights DARWIN, February 6. One-third of the 250 children at a ret note Aboriginal mission station north-east of Darwin may be suffering from brain disorders because of malnutrition.

Dr Alan Walker, a senior specialist in pediatrics in the Australian Health Department, told a Parliamentary committee investigating Aboriginal affairs that a survey last month had indicated the severity of the situation. At the Yirrkala Methodist Mission, which housed 600 Aborigines and about 250 children, 31 per cent of the children were 20 per cent under weight: the incidence of low body weight was 10 times as high among Aboriginal children as among whites in the area, Dr Walker said, and there appeared to ibe a common association of

'low head ctrcun iferenc* : among under-weight child■ren. i This fact could bo important, in view of recei it over • seas research, whit h had ![shown that main utrition among young child ren ret suited in a permanent reduc- > tion in brain size, at id pos- ) sibly brain disorders. • ; “The result could 1 nean a i permanent stunting ol physi- : cal stature, and poor! y funi ) tioning people who would - rear their own childret i under ? conditions designed I o pmr duce a new generat ion of i under-nourished clx Idren ' 1 Dr Walker said.