In Search Of Proper Diet For Kids: Concerns Regarding Children’s Food As Reflected In Bengali Periodicals Of The Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

In colonial Bengal, the physical well being of the children became one very significant issue especially in the early twentieth century. Healthy children signified the healthy future of the society and children’s health was dependent to a large extent on a healthy and nutritious diet. Therefore, concerns regarding children’s food became one of the dominant anxieties among the Bengali Hindu middle class of the early twentieth century as reflected in the periodical literature of the period. The present paper will bring out the ways in which these concerns regarding the children’s food became part of the broader perception of anxiety among the Bengali middle class. It will investigate how advices regarding nutritious meal for kids, right meal timing, proper school-tiifin, appropriate quantity of food, as well as the debate on traditional milk versus new patent foods occupied a significant portion of health related arguments in the Bengali periodical literature of the concerned period.