MALNUTRITION

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 126, 23 November 1935, Page 10

MALNUTRITION

DUE TO WRONG FEEDING

A DOCTOR'S CONVICTION

(Special to the "Evening Post.") PALMERSTON N., This Day. According to Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, medical officer of the Wanganui Education Board, the incidence of malnu-1 trition amongst children in Palmerston North and surrounding district is very small. This week she has been examining at Foxton, where conditions j were as hard if not harder than in most places. The whole school was examined, but 73 infants and special cases brought to the doctor's attention were completely examined. Of these there were only six cases of malnutri- i tion, three being due to urgent tonsil and adenoid operations. When Dr. Gunn started the first health camp in 1919, from which the whole health camp movement started, her figures for malnutrition were 22 to 28 per cent.

Dr. Gunn states emphatically that she has never found .a case of malnutrition due to want of food in NewZealand—to wrong feeding, yet. She feels that it is the parents who are going without and not the children. She congratulated the women of Foxton for providing hot soup each day in the winter months, and feels sure this has materially benefited the children. The present-day reduction in the figures of malnutrition is due to regular medical inspection in schools, the visiting of homes by the school nurse, the more intelligent attitude of parents, the teachings of the Plunket system, and the more general keenness of women in affairs pertaining to health, homes, and child welfare.