NUTRITION PROBLEMS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 12, 7 October 1937, Page 12

NUTRITION PROBLEMS

— * Comprehensive Survey By League of Nations The final report of the League of Nations committee oh the relation of nutrition to health, agriculture and economic policy is a hook of more than "■00 pages. Just published by the League, it is the most authoritative and comprehensive study of the broader aspects oi the problem of nutrition— -a problem of world-wide importance — which has yet appeared. Since everyone is interested in food, and vast numhers in the production of food, the hook is eminently one for the general publie as well as for the experts in the various fields covered by the study. The report is the result of .two years ' work by an dnternational committee of agricultural, economic and health , experts under the auspices of the League. It is concerned for the main part with the economic aspects of nutrition policy and wifh its relations to agriculture. . To complete the picture, a chapter on the physiological side 'of the problem from the interkn report of the committee has been included, modified in the light of recent nutrition research. Tho third part of the report contains a more detailed examination oi the economic and agricultural considerations connected with nutrition policy. - The second chapter discusses the problem of the adaptation of agriculture to the desired changes in consumption. It is demonstrated that agriculture has shown considerable powers of adaptation in the past, in particular where no obstacles have prevented changes in demand fi'Om expressing themselves through changes in price. The report is divided into three parts. The first part, which has three chapters, gives a general survey of the problem and of the work already earried out. The second part of the -report is devoted ■ exclusively to the health aspect of nutrition. It contains a clear account of the main principles of the "new knowledge of nutrition" as tliey have been developed by recent research; a description of the nature and functions of the most importaht vitamins and minerals and of the diseases resulting from their deficiency; an analysis of the nutritive qualities of various foods. The committee realises that the raising of the income level in the different countries is essentially a national problem of a long-range chaiacter. But it draws attention to the possibility of improvements in social services, which may in part remedy malnutrition due to poverty, such as family allowanoes, the provision of school meals, of milk for expectant and nursing mothers, etc. Much can also be done on the side of education to improve nutrition, and in this connection attention is drawn to the considerable variations in the quality of diet obtained by families spending at the same levels (relative tp the size of the family). The report concludes with a collection of evidence relating to the present state of nutrition in various parts of the world, demonstrating that in spite of the considerable progress that has taken place in recent decades, the problem is still an urgent one. "The malnutrition which exists in all countries is at once a ehallenge and an opportunity: a ehallenge to men's conseiences and an opportunity to eradicate a social evil by methods which will increase econ'Oiuic prosperity."