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67
The scheme worked well, and broadly speaking we have continued
on the same lines this year.
It became apparent however, after much experience in
examining the children that the weight for height standard was not
an adequate criterion of satisfactory nutrition in all cases and we
came to the conclusion that the only rational way of deciding that
a child was malnourished, was on our own clinical findings. We now
use the height for weight standard more as a measure of progress
than as a deciding factor in providing free meals. Having come to
this conclusion we had to follow it to a logical end by not discontinuing
meals as soon as a child reached the standard weight, unless
the child was in a very good general condition. We also kept each
child on milk if the meals were stopped because the child had reached
a normal weight, and the child was still weighed at monthly intervals.
This has been a great advantage, as the figures will show, and no child
who has come up to standard has been allowed to fall back.
In many cases we had to abandon all criteria of nutrition
and provide meals irrespective of weight, because the home conditions
were bad and we obviously could not allow a child to be
hungry.
The meals are prepared by the children at the ordinary
cookery classes. This is of course a great saving in labour and cost,
and of great advantage to the children who are thus taught to
prepare complete meals instead of single items.
Last term, at the Special (M.D.) School, the appearance and
condition of a girl of 12 years had so improved, since the last medical
inspection, that we commented on it to the mother. It is usual
to ask in the course of a mental examination whether the child
is useful in the home or not. The mother in this case replied that
since the girl had been attending the Cookery Centre she had learned
to cook so well,that she insisted on preparing the evening meal.
The food which she chose was of course, similar to that provided
at the Centre, inexpensive, and of high food value.
The Domestic Science teacher at the school, on being told
of this informed us that the girl in question brought all her clothes
to wash on laundry lesson days, and that evidently accounted for the
remarkable improvment in her condition.
The girl came from a particularly feckless home and until
a year ago the home was very constantly visited by the School
Nurses.
We have been tremendously impressed by the way in which
the work has been carried out at one of the Centres, Each morning