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18
It was a great pleasure to accept Dr. Mortimer's kind offer to undertake
the weekly clinic sessions again, and the renewed success of this clinic
whose methods were pioneered in Croydon, is confidently anticipated.
Dr. W. Simmonds' clinics for overweight boys use rather different
methods but appear to be similarly successful. These facilities were extended
to further schools during the year. Dr. Simmonds concentrates upon
the individual approach to dietary control and emphasises the need for
active co-operation and support over a long period on the part of the child.
Another aspect of inappropriate nutrition concerns not the excessive
consumption of food but its ingestion at irregular times. In a highly
sophisticated society this may occasionally be necessary but it is difficult
to justify the inadequate meal offered to some children before they go
to school in the morning. A report from the Queen Elizabeth College showed
that a significant number of school children go out in the morning without
breakfast or a very inadequate one of cereals or biscuits. In some cases it
can be shown that the child has been without food for 18 hours by the time
that the school dinner is consumed. Dr. Anne Letts comments that this
practice occurs in Croydon with its consequent effect on school work. The
child is frequently over-tired and goes to bed too late. The following
morning the child either wakes with too little time for breakfast or with no
appetite. The busy mother, perhaps herself working to a strict time
schedule to meet her own commitments outside the home, has no time for the
lengthy meal time that most children occas ionally require and so the child
leaves for school tired and hungry, and hardly well equipped to participate
to the full in the learning process. A meagre meal of biscuits or crisps (which
were the subject of criticism in last year's report, see p. 16) must suffice
until the school meal offers the first substantial nourishment of the day. This
all too familiar story is readily preventable and its dangers deserve wider
publicity.