British Food Journal Volume 39 Issue 3 1937

Abstract

Referring to the plans of the Ministry of Health for creating a “Fitter Britain,” Sir Kingsley Wood recently said: “We have many plans for building up an A1 nation in the New Year. One important thing we must not forget. If we are to be successful we must, while steadily maintaining and improving our existing health services, always keep before us our fuller conceptions of health policy to‐day—that it is not enough to protect the individual or the community from disease, but that we must more and more be health builders. The present year finds us on the threshold of an important development in our plans for the creation of a ‘Fitter Britain.’ The aim of the Government is to give a special and better place in our health provision to physical education and self‐equipment. It is not because there is physical deterioration in Great Britain, but rather because we believe that still greater results can be achieved. We have no desire to set a course of physical jerks for the nation—dumb‐bells are perhaps relies of the past—but we do desire new concerted efforts in many directions. It is certainly necessary that there should be additional gymnasia and physical recreation, but also the provision of more clubs for young people, more community centres, more swimming baths, more playing fields, and more open‐air life. There will, of course, be no question of compulsion—it is alien to British conceptions of how this country can best attain a fitter and fuller life. We shall work through our existing organisations, local authorities, and voluntary organisations—aided by further Government assistance. So far as new plans needing Parliamentary approval are concerned, he said he hoped that the present year would see the serious gap filled which now existed when children left school and became employed. There was at present no public provision for medical care until insurance began at the age of 16. I do not forget,” Sir Kingsley Wood continued, “that the problem of nutrition is playing, and must play, an increasingly important part in our health plans and policy. The matter of sound nourishment, what constitutes a proper diet, and how we are best to apply our modern knowledge on these matters, is of great importance to the nation. Our own expert Advisory Committee are steadily going on with their work, a collection of family budgets is to be made as part of the Ministry of Labour's investigation of the cost of living, and a number of local authorities are, at the request of the Advisory Committee, also making a series of quantitative dietary surveys. Our milk‐in‐schools scheme is now in operation in schools containing 90 per cent. of the elementary school population. We are also enabled, now that the report of the Milk Reorganisation Commission is available, to consider how we can extend the scope of this scheme. Employment and wages play an important part in improving the nutrition of the nation, and it is gratifying to witness the increasing numbers of our people in work again and the increase in wages of so many industrial workers.”

Citation

(1937), "British Food Journal Volume 39 Issue 3 1937", British Food Journal, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 21-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb011304