ABSTRACT
Almost unanimous advice from doctors, midwives, health visitors and baby care writers persuaded most British parents to abandon the traditional back sleeping position previously used by more than 95% of British parents. By around 1970, it had become almost universally accepted that the world could not produce enough protein to meet human needs and that this substantial shortfall in supplies of dietary protein, termed the protein gap, was set to increase unless large alternative sources of protein could be developed. By the mid-1970s, the belief in a protein gap was seriously challenged and primary protein deficiency is now seen as unlikely even in children with diets based upon low protein starchy staples like yams and cassava. Detailed analyses of the diets of children in the Third World indicated that protein deficiency was almost always a secondary consequence of low total food intake.
