MALNUTRITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 134, 8 June 1936, Page 10

MALNUTRITION

BRITISH SURVEYS * EFFECTS ON WORKERS (Received June 8, 2 p.m.) LONDON, June 7. Reminiscent of Mr. S. M. Bruce's effort to improve nutrition is the appearance of two publications. The first, circulated among delegates to the International Labour Office conference at Geneva, declares that malnutrition of workers throughout the world is mainly due to low wages and is not a result of the temporary depression but a condition of many workers in times of normal activity. It adds that potential productive cappcity could enable producers to supply sufficient food for the workers of most countries. Two doctors, officials at Stockton-on-Tees, following an examination of local conditions, have produced a book showing that deaths in families with incomes of less than 35s a week arc twice as many as in families with incomes of 755, and that even when slum dwellers have been removed to new houses the death-rate has been four times in excess of expectations. The investigation indicated that food came last in the weekly budget, especially among unemployed workers. The Ministry of Health's overcrowding survey, in connection with which 1100 local authorities furnished reports, disclosed that nearly a quarter of a million houses out of six millions in England and Wales were overcrowded. Mining districts were the blackest spots.