Malnutrition

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 284, 28 August 1935, Page 11

Malnutrition

Sir, —Having read so many contradictory statements regarding the incidence of malnutrition among school children, and being assured from my own observation that large.numbers of our city children are suffering from insufficient and improper feeding, I felt that it was just possible that what the Minister of Health and bis supporters mean by malnutrition may bo something very different from what the great mass <»f the public mean by the term, I therefore consulted Stedman's Medical Dictionary fox- an authoritative definition. There I find the term defined as “faulty nutrition due to xnalassimilation.” The sting is in the tail. lt may well be that Sir Alexander Young is quite right in his contention that there has been no increase in malnutrition during the years of the depression. for, technically, malnutrition is not an effect of insufficient food or even of starvation. It is a disease due to bad or wrong assimilation of the food consumed, and is likely to be more prevalent among the <>verfed than among the underfed. AV hat people are so concerned about, ■however, is .the largo number of children who have insufficient of the right kind of food or, indeed, of any kind of food, for normal development. I would suggest, therefore, that the Minister be asked whether he has any precise knowle'dge of the intndence of under-nourish-xnent among school children during the past five years.—l am. etc., n- . . W- H- GOULD. AV ellmgton, August 27.