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To obtain these figures it is just as necessary to examine the healthy children
as children who are not so healthy.
Standards of nutrition, however, depend upon the personal idiosyncrasy of
the doctor making the assessment. You may take it that doctors generally have a
very good knowledge of pre-war conditions and have due regard to this in making
their present day assessment. Moreover, although during the past years our medical
staff has been constantly changing, the relatively favourable opinion expressed for
the year 1947 is consistent with what we have constantly found during the last
few years.
Incidentally I may mention that having regard to the heights and weights which
have been recorded over many years, we believe positively that children today
generally are inches taller and pounds heavier than they were a generation ago.
SCHOOL MEALS.
Question:—What is done and what is going to be done, about School
Meals?
Answer:—There is no doubt that the first approach to a healthy meal is to have
a healthy appetite and, of course, we know only too well that where appetite
approaches hunger, it can be the dominating issue to any meal. Neither cooking,
table appointments nor congenial company can be factors of real importance if once
a person is desperately hungry.
In the ordinary way when people take meals the way in which the food is cooked
and otherwise prepared, the way in which it is served and the company in which
it is eaten, are very important factors indeed.
I do believe our schools have enormous
difficulties in front of them with all this school
feeding, but at the same time they have
glorious opportunities, of which I have no
doubt our teachers will take the fullest
advantage, so soon as the necessary equipment and staff can be put at their
disposal.
I look forward to the time when school meals can be served at small tables seating
not more than eight children. I hope that the meals will not only be balanced
dietetically, but served in such a way that a meal time becomes a period of enjoyment.
It is a curious thing—two people eat similar meals, the same proteins, fats and
carbo-hydrates and alike in every other way by which the scientist can judge—
including calorific value—but if the one person eats it quietly in good company
Average Number of
School Meals served
each week during
1947 30,000