First report / Advisory Committee on Nutrition.

  • Great Britain. Advisory Committee on Nutrition.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First report / Advisory Committee on Nutrition. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4. The first question is one of fact, what foods and what amounts of each are consumed by the nation, and how the total consumption of these foods is distributed among the in- dividual men, women, adolescents and children of all sorts and conditions who make up the nation. 5. Ihe second question—as to any changes. which appear desirable—calls on the other hand, not for the laborious col- lection and competent handling of statistical material, but for a considered opinion, in the light of this material, on the applica- tion of the lessons of recent nutritional science to the feeding of the nation. 6. We believe that this is the first occasion in history that a comprehensive survey, statistical and physiological, of the diet of a whole nation has been set on foot by any Government. 7. Scope of Report.—In this first Report we are giving the results of our preliminary survey of the whole field. We are very far from having completed our investigations, and in several directions we have initiated large-scale inquiries which are only just beginning. But in view of the wide popular interest in food and nutrition we have felt it incumbent upon us to present this Report, sketching in outline the nature of the _ problem and the general picture we have formed of the present position. 8. The particular questions to which we have addressed ourselves are:— (i) Is there sufficient food produced in and imported into the country to ensure for everyone a diet in conformity with the principles of modern knowledge? (ii) Are the diets of different sections of the population adequate in every respect in the light of recent advances in the knowledge of nutrition ? (iii) Is the state of nutrition* of every section as good as it could be made by the application of modern knowledge? g. In attempting to answer these questions, our first task was to collect all relevant information from existing records, to classify it, and to determine its limitations and defects. The next step was to devise and initiate plans to fill the gaps in our knowledge. The present Report is mainly an account of these activities. 10. We have conceived it to be our task to indicate in what directions changes in the nation’s diet are desirable rather than to show how these changes can be brought about by economic or * We have interpreted the term “ state of nutrition ’’’ as applying to the physical and functional bodily condition only in so far as it is dependent on food. : 40283 ; AB