View report page

69
There is evidently general appreciation by the children of the dietary, the variety
of food is said still to be as stimulating to their appetites as when the dietary was
first introduced. There has been a great diminution in the amount of food left on
the plates. Whereas formerly much food was rejected by the children at table and
found its way to the pig trough, it is now stated that waste is almost reduced to the
vanishing point. The substitution of an egg once a week in the summer months
for hot potatoes as a breakfast extra, which was authorised when the dietary was
considered in May last, has been greatly appreciated.
The milk ration, especially for the older children, has been increased. It is
made clear that the milk allowance for each child up to ten years should be seven
pints a week, and for those of ten and upwards four and a half pints a week. The
syrup ration for breakfast (half an ounce) has been increased to three-quarters of
an ounce.
There was a general desire for an alternative to "corned beef" once a week, and
sausages were allowed at discretion for this purpose.
Although there was never any criticism of the dietary as a whole, there were
minor criticisms in the early stages of its trial. These were all due to a confusion of
the dietary itself with the suggested menus which were printed as an appendix to
the dietary. These were intended merely as suggestions, and as such added greatly
to the value of the booklet issued. It has been made abundantly clear that the
appended menus are purely suggestions and have no binding force.
To the footnote of the scale stating that children should be fed "according to
appetite "have been added the words " for which a reserve of bread and potatoes
should be available."
The dietary as it stands is intended for a mixed population of boys and girls of
average age of 3 to 15 years.
Adolescent boys, who are under manual training for a considerable part of their
time, clearly require larger quantities of food, and it cannot be expected that they
can be adequately fed on the same dietary or at the same cost as a mixed
population of younger children. It was decided to increase the allowance of the staple
articles of diet to the extent of 25 per cent. in those institutions consisting only of
boys, where the average age is in the neighbourhood of 14 years.
With regard to the residential open-air schools where debilitated children are
sent, it is necessary that certain modifications should be made if the dietary scale,
which was devised for healthy normal children, is to be extended to them. These
modifications have been made in the form of additional egg and milk rations at
the expense of meat and rougher vegetables.
The general effect of the dietary has been considered by Mr. W. P. Sheldon,
M.D., F.R.C.P., who is both an assistant medical officer in the school medical
service and one of the Council's pediatric consultants. He is satisfied as to the
suitability of the diet on general grounds and has prepared a series of tables of
heights and weights.
As the heights and weights of the children had not been taken during the years
before the new dietary was introduced, Dr. Sheldon has compared the weights and
heights of children at the time the new dietary was introduced with the weights and
heights of children of the same ages weighed and measured at the end of a year on
the new diet. These were not comparisons of the same children, but comparisons
of the condition of the children at each age group after a year on the new diet,
with the condition of the children corresponding in age in the previous year who
had arrived at their height and weight at that time as the result of the dietaries
previously in force in the schools. Given children of equal vitality and physique
over all the age groups, the result, if the new dietary were equal in value to the old,
would be neither gain nor loss.
Actually in 10 out of 13 age groups the advantage lay with the new dietary in
both weight and height. Thus eleven-year old children in March, 1932, had an