Researching War-time Evacuation with Belmont Primary School Children

The Lancashire village of Belmont was created at the start of the nineteenth century to house workers for the bleaching and dyeing works built by industrialist Thomas Ryecroft and landowner Rev. Charles Wright. By the 1930s it had been incorporated into Turton Urban District and although very much rural still functioned as an industrial village. The 1939 National Register records that the majority of the population was working in the local bleach works or paper mill with just 10% farmers or workers on the land. It had a tiny school with just 75 pupils, which was more than doubled in size by the arrival of 80 infants from Temple School, Manchester in September 1939. This was Belmont’s quota of Turton’s allocation of 1,600 evacuees. Today the village is technically part of Blackburn with Darwen, and the parish consists of around 300 homes. It has a lively primary school with a good reputation for supporting pupils with disabilities and high-quality work in the Arts.

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Underweight and overweight in primary school children in eThekwini district in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine ◽

10.4102/phcfm.v3i1.203 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Threethambal Puckree ◽

Pooveshni Naidoo ◽

Prabashni Pillay ◽

Therona Naidoo

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Public Schools ◽

Primary School ◽

School Children ◽

Normal Weight ◽

Overweight And Obesity ◽

Primary School Children ◽

World Health ◽

Urban District ◽

Kwazulu Natal

Background: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children has been increasing worldwide. South Africa has minimal data on childhood body weight.Objectives: This study determined whether school children in the eThekwini district in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, were underweight or overweight.Method: A survey with quantitative and qualitative components was conducted amongst 120 participants between 10 years and 12 years of age. The participants were randomly selected from six public schools in an urban district of the province. A calibrated Goldline bathroom scale was used to measure body weight and a KDS Freo non-elastic measuring tape was used to measure height. A questionnaire consisting of open and close-ended questions collected demographic and lifestyle information. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated from height and weight data. Proportions of obese, overweight and underweight children were calculated and subjected to chi-square tests at the p ≤ 0.05 significance level. All qualitative information was summarised.Results: According to World Health Organization criteria, 66% of the children were underweight, 28% were of normal weight and 5% were overweight. The proportion of underweight children increased with age (64% of children aged between 10 years and 11 years vs 70% for 12-year-olds). Of the underweight children, 41% were female and 51% were Indian.Only one child was obese. BMI was related to dietary patterns and activity levels during and outside school hours.Conclusion: A significant number of primary school children from the six selected public schools in the eThekwini district were underweight. More effort is required to improve the nutritional status of school children in the eThekwini district.

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