In our Interim Report we emphasized the urgency of the problem malnutrition was a social evil even in wealthy countries (such as the United States and Britain) and must be a far more serious one ip poorer nations, We invited Governments to acquire fuller information about the exact state of nourishment of their own people and if necessary to take the necessary steps to remedy matters.
At Gene 5 September, this report was fully debated. The Assembly accepted and endorsed our recommendations and the Committee was reappointed with instructions to present a Final Report next summer. This will deal with the economic, the agricultural, and the commercial aspects which may have to be faced.
One of the first things we did in 1936, at one of our early meetings, was to recommend that all governments set up National Nutrition Councils. When my Committee re~ commended the establishment of these new ad hoc bodies we were purposely vague. In a world where the forms ard mechanism of government and administration are so diverse it would not have been wise or expedient to lay down too speci-tically how these councils were to be Gonstituted, or what they shawld do. We hoped they would coordinate and stimulate offer February last I presided at neva ov the first Con'erence of representa ti es of these bodies. The following eleven countries were represented: Belgium, Great Britain, United States of America, France, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, Poland also had an observer.
There were three main points en cur agenda:
(1) The composition and functions of National Nutrition Councils; The need for surveys and for the collection of more accurate infor tion and data in each country as te the state of nutrition or malnutri of the people; (3) Education and piopaganda, The delegates ut this conference nlerchanged experiences and compared notes. They, like the members of my Committee, had had to fee! their way. The members of the Secretariat concerned with nutrition were, as onlookers, most en-by the indications of life veal and the proofs of real ty in so many countries. This firmed our impression that the tion of nutrition is likely to be 1s important a social and political problem as have been housing, public health, factory legislation, ete.
Now a national policy on nutrition may depend upon action taken by: such various departments of state as those dealing with agriculture, trade, finance, health, education.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.