THE SCHOOL LUNCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 22, 7 November 1944, Page 3

THE SCHOOL LUNCH

(By the Department of Health). There is still too little thought being given to the school lunch. Parents are, included to overlook the very important fact that the school lunch constitutes one-third of the day's meals for the child and they make it a scratch .sort of affair . Bread butter and jam and y 0 cake arc not good enough. There must be, some thing more nourishing. Away back in 1932 a Norwegian worried about the malnutrition evident in the poorer children of his cit\\ devised what has come to be known as the Oslo meal. He found that his meal of whole,meal bread, a good-sized pat of butter, goatsmilk cheese a glass of milk half an apple or half an orange or lettuce salad and raw carrot ( caused a noticeable improvement in the growth and general health of the compared with that of other children having an ordinary meal of meat and cocked vegetables. It was adopted in Long ( and the children gained from 40 to 100 per cent more in weight and height than children on ordinary lunches. In Australia health lunches caused the children to put on height and weight and generally gave them better complexions brighter eyes, better appetites and increased resistance to infections. Similar experiments in Duncdin had similar satisfying results. There would be no need to have such things as the Oslo meal, however if mothers would balance the home diet including the school lunch. Tlie Department of Health has a special pamphlet dealing with school lunches and how to vary tliem j and a copy may be. had on application. It makes the problem of school lunches no longer a problem for the busy mother.