FOOD FOR THE POOR-

Evening Star, Issue 21718, 12 May 1934, Page 17

FOOD FOR THE POOR-

DISPUTE IN BRITAIN DOCTORS AND GOVERNMENT The usual vacuum in British politics at this time of the year is being filled by statistics of calories and proteins which the Government’s medical experts and the British Medical Association are throwing at each other - in the controversy over what the minimum diet for a poor man should be, says the ‘ New York Times.’

Lord Dawson of Penn, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, is begging the rival groups to compose their quarrels in dignified secrecy for the welfare both of the profession and of the poor. He deplores the fact that differences in medical opinion are being used for political purposes. But is is too late for secrecy to prevent the Government’s opponents from insisting that the prospective Treasury surplus should be used for the benefit of the country’s under-nourished rather than for military purposes or for reduction of the income tax. The Government’s own medical experts have decided that 3,000 calories daily are sufficient for the adult male, and that ho needs only thirty-seven grammes a day of the proteins derived from animal products. The Ministry of Health lias accepted these figures as an adequate standard, but the British Medical Association has taken the ground that the Government ration is enough for only a bare subsistence and not maintaining physical vigour for future work during periods of enforced unemployment. The association appointed its_ own committee of nine leading physicians to determine the minimum expenditure on food which would be_ incurred by families of varying sizes if health and working capacity were to be maintained. HIGHER RATIO. These doctors have reported that the adult male should have 3,400 calories daily and fifty grammes of animal proteins as against the Government’s 3,000 calories and thirty-seven grammes. The Ministry of Health retorts that there is neither evidence nor argument to justify the figures of the British Medical Association.

There is added awkwardness in the situation for the Minister of Health; in fact, liis Cabinet colleague, the Minister of War, insists that soldiers in the Army and in the Territorial Forces in time of peace have sixty-two grammes of meat protein per man, or twenty-five more than the Government thinks sufficient for the poor civilian' and twelve more even than the amount stipulated by the medical association. Furthermore, prison officials in Scotland provide 3,600 calories daily for convicts on the assumption that this is the minimum on which working capacity can be maintained.

On the basis of individual and family needs figured proportionately to the requirements of the adult male, the Medical Association lias worked out precise food tables for families of different are groups. It has not, however, been able to reach such exactitude with reference to cost because of the varying prices in difference localities. But it suggests an average cost per man per week of 5s lOd, with proportionately lower figures for women and children. LIGHT ON COST. The Government docs not undertake to say in its nutrition recommendations what the cost should be, but many .survrvs in industrial areas where

thousands of families are subsisting on part-time wages or Government upemployment benefits reveal that their food expenditures are far below what would enable them to eat what the British Medical Association says they should. One difficulty in such cases is the lack of co-ordination between different Government welfare activities. For example, slum clearance as well as the question of' food is also a matter belonging to the Minister of Health. But progress in one direction seems defeat in the other. The rents of new houses are out of all proportion to the ability of the tenants to pay, so they have to cut food costs. The family still living in a slum house pays only 17 per cent, of the total income for rent, while the dweller in a new house has to pay out 30 per cent, of its income to the landlord. . _ 1 The result is that slum dwellers arc suffering less from malnutrition than arc the occupants of better habitations.