Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1938. NUTRITION & CHILD HEALTH.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1938. NUTRITION & CHILD HEALTH.

THAT the Dominion Council of the British Medical Association recently resolved to approach the Minister of Health (the Hon P. Fraser) and ask that an investigation be made into child nutrition in New Zealand is all thus far that has been made known on the subject with authority. There is much to be said, however, for the investigation suggested. Taking account of the favourable environment and social conditions in which young New Zealanders are reared, their health and physique are not in every respect all that might be expected or even 'demanded.

The fact that there is approximately seven per cent of malnutrition among our primary school children and the wide prevalence of dental disease among both young and old people in this country ought to be regarded as blots on our national record. No doubt it will be agreed almost universally that neither effort nor expense should be grudged in endeavouring to remove these blots by trying to establish higher and better standards of general health.

It is rather unfortunate that the disclosure of .the action of the Council of the Medical Association in seeking an investigation into child nutrition has been accompanied by some incidental references of vaguely indicated origin, which may be interpreted as a criticism or even condemnation of the work of the Plunket Society. One of these references, emanating from Wellington, read: —

It is understood, too, that the percentage system of infant feeding widely advocated in New Zealand has been questioned by the specialists- as having been superseded elsewhere in the world on the grounds that it. involved certain dietetic deficiencies and led to malnutrition in some cases. It was stated that while New Zealand had a very low rate of infantile mortality, she had also a. shockingly low average of physique among school children, in a country where they led an outdoor life and where actual starvation through poverty virtually did not exist.

These suggestions can hardly be regarded as aimed at anything else than the work of the Plunket Society. It must be hoped that if they are made with any kind of medical or other authority they will be developed in full detail and dealt with. If it can be shown that the lines on which the Plunket Society is working are in any respect at fault, undoubtedly they must be rectified.

It seems only fair to observe meantime, however, that the approach of the Plunket Society to the problems of infant welfare and healthy motherhood with which it is concerned is and always has been essentially scientific. The society is committed to the aim of ensuring that children shall be born and reared in the healthiest possible conditions, in light of all the knowledge that research or experience can bring to light. The society teaches primarily that infants should be reared, if that be humanly possible, on the natural food that admittedly surpasses all others. Failing natural feeding, methodical endeavours are made to approach it as nearly as possible by artificial means, but by no means in conditions of rigid uniformity. On the contrary, every effort is made to satisfy the particular needs of individual infants.

As regards both infant, welfare and the study and care of the pre-school child, the Plunket Society no doubt is well able to defend itself. It must be agreed that in spite of the work of the Plunket Society and other agencies, the health and physique of both children and adults in this country are not in many cases what they ought to be.

The fullest and most, searching investigation into the whole question is very desirable, the more so since, in a measure, the problems involved appear at present to baffle the best brains of the medical and dental professions in this country. Cases are by no means infrequent, for example, in which children, born of healthy parents and brought up in careful conformity with the best medical and dental advice obtainable, have not escaped more or less serious dental disease. The factors of every kind underlying this unsatisfactory state of affairs cannot be investigated too thoroughly. All that need be asked is that the investigation shall be made in a spirit of pure inquiry and with a careful avoidance of fixed ideas or prejudices of any kind.