§ Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what evidence he has for increases in the incidence of rickets and malnutrition among schoolchildren over the period 1965 to 1975.
§ Dr. OwenI have been asked to reply.
None. Neither rickets nor malnutrition are notifiable diseases.
Since the early 1970's there has, however, been evidence that a proportion of the young immigrant population in the United Kingdom is affected by varying degrees of vitamin D deficiency which leads to rickets. Doctors, health visitors, school nurses and midwives have been alerted to the existence of the problem and the groups in the population most likely to be deficient in vitamin D so that the population could be told of the risk, the dietary means by which the disorder could be prevented, and how it could be treated.
Surveillance of the nutritional state of schoolchildren carried out under the aegis of the Chief Medical Officer's Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy shows that in general children are well nourished with, if anything, a problem of over-nutrition—obesity—rather than of under-nutrition. Such under-nutrition as is found is usually in small pockets and associated with social inadequacy, ignorance or language difficulties.