DIET AND INCOME

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 23

DIET AND INCOME

“Food, Health and Income”: Report on survey of adequacy of diet in relation to income. By John Boyd Orr. 1 London: Macmillan).

Details of the investigations by the Howell Institute in co-operation with tile staff of file Market Supply Committee London, into the adequacy of diet in relation Io income are contained in a lucidly presented report by Mr. John Boyd Orr. The report surveys the state of nutrition of the British people on a broad scale, and from a new angle. Minimum requirements have not been discussed but instead optimum requirements have been considered. These are based on the physiological ideal, which may be defined as “a state of well-being such that no improvement can be effected by a change in the diet.” The tentative conclusion reached is that a diet completely adequate for health according to modern standards is reached at an income level above that of 50 per cent, of the population. This means that. 50 per cent, of the population are living at a level of nutrition so high that, on the average, no improvement can lie effected by increased consumption. Tile important, aspect of the investigation, however, is the inadequacy of the diets of the lower income groups and the markedly lower standard of health of the people and especially of the children in these groups, compared with that of the higher income groups,