Health and diet

• The war had a disastrous, permanent impact on many people
• In 1921, 1,187,450 men were in receipt of disability pensions
• A survey conducted in 1933 concluded that unemployment benefits were insufficient to provide a minimum diet recommended by the Ministry of Health
• Certain wartime trends persisted:

  • Decline in alcohol consumption
  • Rationing in the last years of the war promoted a healthier diet as did the rolling out of the 1914 Education (Provision of Meals) Act to all needy schoolchildren
  • those families who hosted evacuee children during WW2 were still shocked
  • 1936 study concluded the average diet was diet was better than before 1914
• Healthcare improved between the wars
• By 1922, infant mortality had halved from 1900 levels
• On average far more working-class women went hungry than men when there was insufficient food to go around
• More people survived to the age of 65 although poor geriatric care meant life expectancy beyond this was limited
• More people survived to the age of 65 although poor geriatric care meant life expectancy beyond this was limited
• Large variations remained between different regions e.g. No national system of healthcare meant hospital care was a postcode lottery
• After 1933 'light industries' such as the production of household appliances grew in the southeast of England and these more prosperous areas experienced a consumer boom