HEALTH OF CHILDREN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3929, 21 July 1937, Page 12

HEALTH OF CHILDREN

“MILK ONLY A SHORT CUT.” NEED FOR CORRECT DIET. While praising the magnificent work of the .Plunket Society during the course of an address at Dunedin to the conference of the Otago and Southland branches of the society, Dr Martin B. • M. Tweed, Heretaunga, made an appeal for better care of the children after they had passed through the hands of the society’s nurses. He expressed disapproval of the manner in which children were allowed to eat foods which merely satisfied, instead of being given nourishment that was necessary to build healthy bodies. “How can the nurses of the Plunket Society look each other in the face with any feelings of satisfaction and self-congratulation,” he said, “while children with deformed jaws, decayed teeth, knock-knees and other defects walk from tuck shop to tuck shop, brandishing bags of sweets? I am not blaming the society, which is doing a magnificent work, but I am only pointing out that its aims are being undermined by these effects, over which it has no control." One of the alms of the society, Dr Tweed continued, referred to the duty of health. 111-health should be looked upon as a crime, and sick people should not receive any pity. They did not regard health as a duty, because they did not look upon illhealth as a crime. Sir Truby King had stated the society aimed at selfextinction, because when mothercraft was perfectly, understood there would be no need for the society’s existence, tut how near were they to that ideal? Malnutrition and preventable defects among children were still appallingly frequent. True, New Zealand had the lowest infant mortality rate in the world, but it also had one of the lowest birth rates. Statistics showed that for every 1500 people in the Dominion only 23 babies were born every year. That rate of increase was nothing to be proud of. From a national point of view, those 23 mothers and 23 babies were the only important people, and the rest of the 1500 should have as their chief function the administering of those young children. The fault lay in the fact they were trying to increase production instead of endeavouring to increase consumption of necessary foods. Far too many energy producing foods, such as sugar and white flour, were being eaten today, and there was a need for research into the extent to which everyday diets for children fell short of requirements and the extent to which the increasing consumption of sugar and white flour was detrimental to health. They should make necessary foods so cheap that people could not afford to ignore them, and the prices of unnecessary foods should be increased so that they could not be purchased. “Excellent results have been ,achieved by giving milk to school children,” Dr Tweed said, “but we cannot be proud of it, because milk is only a short cut to health. The Maoris had magnificent physique and teeth, and yet they had no milk but human milk The search for health has become so complicated to-day that we should endeavour to return to the original Truby King ideal—to follow a simple and natural diet. The trouble is. however, the main issue of living sim-

ply and naturally has become clouded." Dr Tweed stressed the importance of proper ante-natal treatment of mothers, stating it was gratifying to see maternity hospitals and obstetrical societies were calling attention to the necessity for adequate supervision of mothers before the birth of their children. With the diminishing birth rate babies were now so precious the State was beginning to realise the urgent necessity for seeing every prospective mother had correct care and diet from the earliest possible moment.