LOOKING TO THE CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 120, 23 May 1930, Page 8

LOOKING TO THE CHILD

Medical examination of school children, which ends with the child, obviously does not go far enough in many instances. Some further inquiry is needed to discover the s6urce of those defects which the personal examination reveals. Valuable work in this direction has been carried out undei\ Dr. Henderson, school medical officer. A survey of the health conditions of country school children has been made in conjunction with an inquiry into their homelife and environment. The survey does not purport to be complete, but it is regarded as fairly representative of the groups covered—coalminers, bush timber-mill workers, and dairy farmers in thriving communities and remote areas. A summary of the results is published in our news columns to-day. The defects disclosed are in part economic, and not remediable by ordinary educational means. The overworking of mothers, leading to domestic inefficiency, for example, is a trouble for which neither the Education nor the Health Department can prescribe. Yet it is a first step towards reform that the facts and their influence on the children should be known. There are, however, certain faults which can be corrected without difficulty. As an illustration, it seems strange

that 10 per cent, of share-milkers' children never take milk as a beverage. There can be no poverty excuse for this, and it is surely only necessary to inform the parents of the value of fresh milk in the diet to have the fault removed. Again, lack of green vegetables, a noted deficiency in the diet, is easily remedied in the country. Without going further, it seems that a little health propaganda, following up the, survey, may be of the utmost value. If the inquiry is continued to embrace oilier groups it cannot fail to produce more useful information.