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26
there were more children in the schools whose nutrition was not
quite satisfactory than there wore in the years before the war,
and it was noticed that there were many children, otherwise
quite healthy, who were decidedly thin; the impression obtained
was that these children were maintaining their state of
nutrition by drawing on their reserves - a state of affairs
which must in the long run have undesirable results.
In my Annual Report for the year 1932 I discussed
at some length the use of the weight-height ratio as an index
of nutrition. I indicated that it was subject to certain
limitations, and that it could not be used astan absolute
index of physical condition. Since that time careful records
have been kept each year of the weight-height ratios of all
the children seen at the Routine Medical Inspections in the
schools: not because they provided an absolute index, but
because they did provide a useful comparison by which to
detect any untoward variations. In the Report for 1932 I
included tables which showed the percentages of children
whose nutrition was unsatisfactory when judged simply by the
weight-height ratio. a similar Table has been prepared from
the results of the Routine Medical Inspections carried out in
1941. This Table compares rather unfavourably with the 1932

As in 1932 there were remarkable differences in the
different schools. This is illustrated in the following
table.
(Bromley Road School is not included in the Table,
because the numbers examined were too small to provide a
reliable figure.)