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Nutrition of school children:
For many years mid-morning milk and meals for school children have been provided
in Southall state schools. This is a most important welfare provision, particularly as the
mid-day dinners are designed carefully to supply an adequate balanced meal once a day.
The value of these provisions is particularly great for children who have to travel some
distance to school as it prevents the hurried consumption and digestion of food, when a
considerable part of the meal break has to be spent in going to and from school, and there
is no doubt that children very often are least difficult about food when they eat communally.
Provided school canteens are well maintained and great care is taken over the handling of
the food there is undoubted benefit to be obtained from the school meals service. It is
interesting to see from figures kindly supplied by the Divisional Education Officer the details
of milk and meals acceptance in the various schools in the Borough. One fact which can be
picked out from these figures is not a good one, i.e. the milk consumption at the Grammar
School where the pupils are at an age when extra milk is most important to them is only 41%
and although the meals consumption is better at 51% is it still not good for a school in which
the pupils are working hard, both physically and mentally, during the period that their growth
and development is probably at the highest peak of their whole lives.