ABSTRACT
In its main outlines the problem of feeding the nation parallels the problem of housing the nation. What can be done to align housing policies in a long-range plan can be done also in the field of nutrition. Housing and food both present problems of production as well as of consumption. Both represent particularly large items in national incomes and in individual family budgets. They are similar with regard to the tremendous social gains in the avoidance of waste which can result from coordinated plans. They are similar, too, in that social concern was first devoted to production problems only. Programs of subsidized building and subsidized agriculture were undertaken as temporary depression measures, while the corresponding needs of a housing policy and of a nutritional policy were overlooked. Thus in both fields policies were extemporized without programs, and this is true not only in Sweden but elsewhere. They are similar, furthermore, in that for both housing and nutrition policy the family viewpoint offers an integrating point for the rationalization of production and consumption. In both there stands out as a social objective the closing of the gap between children’s present underconsumption and an acceptable minimum standard. In both cases this problem cannot be solved without the whole nation shouldering responsibility for the children.
