For the life of me, I cannot understand what a serious and interesting topic as this is, is placed in the CB section and not in Body and Soul.......but there you go.
In the late 40’s and to a less extent the early 50’s, just after WW2 there had been a period of rationing. Kids born,in the 30’s never knew what it was like to buy sweets and chocolates and bananas and other more exotic fruits were just a pipe dream to them.
Hence, with the outdoor life that was lead, recreation grounds, parks, woods and the emphasis on school sports, many of the children were “lanky” and “puny” and it was thought that there were suffering from some hidden deficiency disorder or infective disease. In fact, quite the opposite, they were healthy, healthier than children of today and yes, one did see the odd fat boy in the class, but not so much as the “fat kids” that one sees today.
Tuberculosis was rife at that time and the symptoms were loss of weight, cough and loss of appetite. Antituberculous drugs just coming in, but the death rate from all kinds of TB was high......very high.
So the thin, puny child was a target for the over anxious parent and hence was given the supplements mentioned above including “Radio Malt” and “Worm Cakes” in an effort to make the child healthy.
In fact the child WAS healthy...healthier than our modern day youngster in many ways.
Sunlamp treatment was thought to be the answer.....vitamin defy which almost certainly wasn’t present, cough which was thought could be due to TB, but wasn’t and almost certainly due to Asthma, focused on our “puny and thin child.
Oddly enough, pulmonary TB was thought to have been exacerbated by sunlight but bone TB was beneficial and curative. The rich were sent to Switzerland in sanantoria on the mountains, the sunny side of the mountain for bone TB and the shady side for lung TB.
So you see that in many ways we have substituted over a period of 50 some odd years a healthy child for a potentially a very unhealthy speciman.
But, i suppose that could be called progress...??