Food, Health and Income

Abstract

IN some of the recent controversial discussions concerning dietary standards applicable to human beings, attention was focused on minimum requirements. This report recently issued by Sir John Boyd Orr emphasises the need for defining the optimum diet, that is to say, one which is capable of maintaining a standard of perfect nutrition, which is “a state of well-being such that no improvement can be effected by a change in the diet”. Although data do not yet exist for defining accurately this optimum diet, recent laboratory researches and dietary surveys have made it possible to indicate the amounts of some of the important constituents of a diet which are required to ensure good nutrition in certain classes of individuals. If such standards are accepted as furnishing an indication of the adequacy of present-day diets, it is possible to use existing data relating to the food consumption of the population of Great Britain to determine how far such diets are capable of supporting a state of good nutrition.

Food, Health and Income:

Report on a Survey of Adequacy of Diet in relation to Income. By Sir. John Boyd Orr. Pp. 72.(London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1936.) 2s. 6d. net.