How Educational Milk-for-Health Campaigns Assist in Decreasing Malnutrition especially among Children

The purpose of organized educational milk-for-health campaigns, as conducted by the Bureau of Dairying, United States Department of Agriculture, and the extension service of the State agricultural colleges is to assist in reducing undernourishment among growing children through an adequate use of milk. These campaigns are "largely an outgrowth of the World War. The selective draft revealed to military authorities a condition of physical defects, rendering one out of every three young men unfit for active military service. Of those rejected 40,000 were found unfit because of developmental defects, such as deficient height, weight, chest measure, or muscular development. This led to a widespread investigation of physical conditions among children by school authorities. According to the height-weight-age tables, which were prepared by Dr. Thomas B. Wood of Columbia University and distributed by the United States Bureau of Education, from one-fifth to one-fourth of the school children were found to be 10 per cent or more underweight.