#nutritionalist

On June 25th 1971, John Boyd Orr, biologist and Nobel Prize Winner, died.

John Boyd Orr's pioneering research led to millions of children across the UK being given free school milk from 1946 to 1971 when Margaret Thatcher, then education secretary, cut provision giving her the mick name Thatcher, "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher”

Boyd Orr was born in Ayrshire into a religious and highly literate family, and it was perhaps inevitable that he should be destined for a career in teaching after studying theology. However, his studies at Glasgow University also opened up new avenues for him. He became interested in the theories of Darwin, and this led to a fascination with zoology.

When he graduated with his MA in 1902, he was assigned to a teaching position in the Glasgow slums to fulfil the obligations required by his scholarship. He lasted only a few days before resigning and going back home to Ayrshire where he was reassigned to a school in Saltcoats. There he completed his teaching but left as soon as he could, saying: "though I liked the children, I hated teaching them”.

Boyd Orr returned to university to study biology and medicine, and he graduated with a BSc in 1910 and MB ChB two years later. He only practised for one month before returning to university to undertake nutritional research. His MD thesis in 1914 was awarded the Bellahouston Gold Medal for the most distinguished thesis of the year.

On the recommendation of his supervisor, he was asked to be the first director of a new research institute in Aberdeen, which would later become the world renowned Rowett Institute. At the time of his appointment, it did not exist, but he would spend the next twenty-five years raising both funds and the profile of nutritional research to make it a reality.

The initial work to build the institute was, however, interrupted by the outbreak of war. Boyd Orr enlisted in the RAMC and saw active service on the Western Front where he was awarded both the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. Later he would never wear the medals saying that the truly brave men had all died.

In the interwar years, he travelled widely and published extensively, emerging as one of the country’s leading experts in nutrition. He first came to national attention in 1936 with the publication of Food, Health and Income, a report of a dietary survey by income group, which revealed that the cost of a diet meeting basic nutritional needs was beyond the means of half the British population.

This led to similar studies being conducted in nineteen other countries and prompted the creation of a Commission of the League of Nations, which tried to formulate a global food policy. It became the forerunner of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Boyd Orr would become the Director General of the FAO from 1945-48. These were important years because the predicted European post-war famine was averted in part by policies put forward by the organisation.

Boyd Orr was no stranger to the challenges of developing and implementing food policies, many of which are still with us today. He spent his later career trying to persuade governments and presidents, organisations and companies to rethink the way they did things. However, he would often bemoan the fact that while he could persuade farmers of the importance of the nutrition of their animals, he could not stir their interest “in the food of their ain bairns, far less in the bairns of ither folks”.

His was a life filled with honours and awards, from Gold medals at University to military decorations to honorary degrees and more. He was elected Rector of Glasgow University and subsequently became its Chancellor. He was briefly a British Member of Parliament, and in 1935 he was knighted for his services to agriculture. In 1949, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Prime Minister Clement Attlee ennobled him as Baron Boyd Orr of Brechin Mearns.

Reading of Boyd Orr’s long career it seems he had a series of false starts and perhaps even failures. But he was no dilettante. He combined a powerful intellect with an admirable work ethic to achieve a mastery in everything he tried. That he chose to move from a career in teaching to medical practice, to research, to politics and then to governance and policy making was not evidence of mere restlessness but of a constant desire to do meaningful work.

One of John Boyd Orr's key quotes highlights the interconnectedness of the world and the need for global unity, stating, "We are now physically, politically, and economically one world and nations so interdependent that the absolute national sovereignty of nations is no longer possible,"Sadly recent events show that the world is no closer to reaching that goal today..........

Boyd Orr was at heart a man with an ambitious vision for the world, and he firmly believed that real peace and prosperity would only ever be achieved when no one was hungry.

On June 25th 1971 , John Boyd Orr, biologist and Nobel Prize Winner, died.

John Boyd Orr's pioneering research led to millions of children across the UK being given free school milk from 1946 to 1971 when Margaret Thatcher, then education secretary, cut provision giving her the mick name Thatcher, "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher”

Boyd Orr was born in Ayrshire into a religious and highly literate family, and it was perhaps inevitable that he should be destined for a career in teaching after studying theology. However, his studies at Glasgow University also opened up new avenues for him. He became interested in the theories of Darwin, and this led to a fascination with zoology.

When he graduated with his MA in 1902, he was assigned to a teaching position in the Glasgow slums to fulfil the obligations required by his scholarship. He lasted only a few days before resigning and going back home to Ayrshire where he was reassigned to a school in Saltcoats. There he completed his teaching but left as soon as he could, saying: "though I liked the children, I hated teaching them”.

Boyd Orr returned to university to study biology and medicine, and he graduated with a BSc in 1910 and MB ChB two years later. He only practised for one month before returning to university to undertake nutritional research. His MD thesis in 1914 was awarded the Bellahouston Gold Medal for the most distinguished thesis of the year.

On the recommendation of his supervisor, he was asked to be the first director of a new research institute in Aberdeen, which would later become the world renowned Rowett Institute. At the time of his appointment, it did not exist, but he would spend the next twenty-five years raising both funds and the profile of nutritional research to make it a reality.

The initial work to build the institute was, however, interrupted by the outbreak of war. Boyd Orr enlisted in the RAMC and saw active service on the Western Front where he was awarded both the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. Later he would never wear the medals saying that the truly brave men had all died.

In the interwar years, he travelled widely and published extensively, emerging as one of the country’s leading experts in nutrition. He first came to national attention in 1936 with the publication of Food, Health and Income, a report of a dietary survey by income group, which revealed that the cost of a diet meeting basic nutritional needs was beyond the means of half the British population.

This led to similar studies being conducted in nineteen other countries and prompted the creation of a Commission of the League of Nations, which tried to formulate a global food policy. It became the forerunner of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Boyd Orr would become the Director General of the FAO from 1945-48. These were important years because the predicted European post-war famine was averted in part by policies put forward by the organisation.

Boyd Orr was no stranger to the challenges of developing and implementing food policies, many of which are still with us today. He spent his later career trying to persuade governments and presidents, organisations and companies to rethink the way they did things. However, he would often bemoan the fact that while he could persuade farmers of the importance of the nutrition of their animals, he could not stir their interest “in the food of their ain bairns, far less in the bairns of ither folks”.

His was a life filled with honours and awards, from Gold medals at University to military decorations to honorary degrees and more. He was elected Rector of Glasgow University and subsequently became its Chancellor. He was briefly a British Member of Parliament, and in 1935 he was knighted for his services to agriculture. In 1949, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Prime Minister Clement Attlee ennobled him as Baron Boyd Orr of Brechin Mearns.

Reading of Boyd Orr’s long career it seems he had a series of false starts and perhaps even failures. But he was no dilettante. He combined a powerful intellect with an admirable work ethic to achieve a mastery in everything he tried. That he chose to move from a career in teaching to medical practice, to research, to politics and then to governance and policy making was not evidence of mere restlessness but of a constant desire to do meaningful work.

Boyd Orr was at heart a man with an ambitious vision for the world, and he firmly believed that real peace and prosperity would only ever be achieved when no one was hungry.

On September 23rd 1880, John Boyd Orr, Nobel Peace prize winner, was born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire.

Boyd Orr is most definitely in the “probably one of most famous Scots you have never heard of.” club, although some will know his name being used as a University of Glasgow Building.

Born in Scotland in 1880, Boyd Orr got his first look at hunger and poverty after he graduated from Glasgow University in 1902 and started teaching school in a Glasgow slum. When he showed up on the first day of class, he was shocked to see that his students were clothed in rags and covered with lice. They were unable to concentrate on their lessons because they were weak and malnourished.

“I went home the first night feeling physically sick and very depressed,” he wrote in his 1966 autobiography As I Recall. “I had another look at the school the next day, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing I could do to relieve the misery of the poor children, so I sat down and sent in my resignation.”

Although he worked as a doctor for a brief period and served in World War I, Boyd Orr’s real passion was nutrition—one of the most exciting areas of research in the 1920s. Nutritionists had just discovered that vitamins were essential to human health, and that animals or people who didn’t eat enough vitamins would develop “deficiency diseases” like scurvy, beriberi, rickets and night blindness.

Boyd Orr was one of the first to establish the value of milk being supplied to school children, which led to free school milk provision in our primary schools, which all us Scots certainly benefited from.

He helped found the Rowett Research Institute in Animal Health in Aberdeen, Scotland, to study the importance of trace mineral elements in animal nutrition. His book, Minerals in Pastures, published in 1929, was one of the first to consider the role minerals played in animal health.

Always remembering those poor malnourished children in Glasgow, Boyd Orr began investigating the possibility of improving the health of the poor in Scotland with better nutrition. In 1931, he launched a dietary survey, which discovered that a third of Scotland’s population was unable “to purchase sufficient of the more expensive health foods to give them an adequate diet.” The results of this survey, published in 1936 under the title Food, Health, and Income, showed that the diets of the poor were lacking in minerals, vitamins and sometimes even protein and calories. “These diets may be sufficient to maintain life and a certain degree of activity, and yet be inadequate for the maintenance of the fullest degree of health which a perfectly adequate diet would make possible,” he concluded.

Boyd Orr believed that the health of these people could be greatly improved if they were only able to get enough milk and other protective foods. And the results of his survey were fresh on his mind when he made the dangerous wartime crossing of the Atlantic to attend a historic conference in the United States—the first-ever United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture., after the war he became their first Director-General

Although his tenure in this position was short, he worked not only to alleviate the immediate post-war food shortage through the International Emergency Food Committee but also to propose comprehensive plans for improving food production and its equitable distribution–his proposal to create a World Food Board. Although the board failed to get the support of Britain and the US, he had laid a firm foundation for the new U.N. specialized agency.

In 1949 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his scientific research into nutrition, donating the entire financial award to organizations devoted to world peace and a united world government.

In 1960 he became the co-founder and the first President of the World Academy of Art and Science

On June 25th 1971 , John Boyd Orr, biologist and Nobel Prize Winner, died.

John Boyd Orr was born at Kilmaurs, near Kilmarnock, his family were deeply religious, being members of  the Free Church of Scotland who never do things in half measures. After a ship his father owned was lost at sea the family had to sell their home at Kilmaurs and moved to West Kilbride, a village on the North Ayrshire coast. The new house and environment were a great improvement on Kilmaurs, despite the family's reduced means. The major part of his upbringing took place in and around West Kilbride, where he attended the local school before being awarded a bursary to Kilmarnock Academy, a significant achievement as such bursaries were then rare.

Orr  went on to study at Glasgow University before being appointed as director of a nutritional research unit near Aberdeen. However, when the war broke out Boyd Orr joined the army, where he won the MC and the DSC before joining the Royal Navy.

He was an adviser to the government on nutrition during the Second World War, and in 1945 he was appointed Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. He argued for an international food policy based on need rather than trade but failed to persuade the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to set up an international body to supervise food production. Imagine that eh, feeding the world through need instead of greed!

Food and prosperity for all people on earth would lead to prolonged peace, Boyd Orr argued.

Orr was knighted in 1932, granted a baronet in 1949 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961- only the second awarded to a Scot.

On September 23rd 1880, John Boyd Orr, Nobel Peace prize winner, was born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire.

Another one on the list of “probably one of the most famous Scots you have never heard of.”

His father, Robert Clark Orr, was a quarry owner, and a man of deep religious convictions, being a member of the Free Church of Scotland. His mother, Annie Boyd, was the daughter of another quarry master, wealthier than Robert Orr, and grandmaster of a Freemason's Lodge. When he was five years old, the family suffered a setback when a ship owned by Robert Orr was lost at sea. They had to sell their home in Kilmaurs, and moved to West Kilbride.

At the age of 19 he won a Queen's Scholarship to study at a teacher training college in Glasgow. At the same time he entered a three-year degree course in theology at the University.

He held various teaching posts in Glasgow thereafter but found difficulties teaching the malnourished students. After fulfilling his scholarship teaching requirement he decided to return to studying.

He returned to university, graduating with a degree in biology in 1910, and M.B. Ch.B. in 1912, at the age of 32. Two years later, in 1914, he graduated M.D. with honours, receiving the Bellahouston Gold Medal for the most distinguished thesis of the year.

After a stint in general practice, he decided his passions lay elsewhere, and he embarked on his research journey, having accepted an offer of a two-year Carnegie research scholarship.

This is where his career as a nutritionist took off, where his research covered malnutrition, protein and creatine metabolism, the effect of water intake on nitrogenous metabolism in humans, and the energy expenditure of military recruits in training.

In 1914, he took charge of a new research institute in Aberdeen, in what is now known as the Rowett Institute.

After spending WW1 in the army as a civilian surgeon, he spent the 1920’s engrossed in his research, which was devoted mainly to animal nutrition, his focus changed to human nutrition both as a researcher and an active lobbyist and propagandist for improving people's diets.

In 1927, he proved the value of milk being supplied to school children, which led to free school milk provision in the UK. His 1936 report Food, Health and Income showed that at least one third of the UK population were so poor that they could not afford to buy sufficient food to provide a healthy diet.

From 1929 to 1944, he was Consultant Director to the Imperial Bureau of Animal Nutrition, later the Commonwealth Bureau of Nutrition (part of the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau), which was based at the Rowett Research Institute.

After the Second World War, he resigned from the Rowett Institute, and took several posts, most notably as Director-General of the United Nations' new Food and Agriculture Organization. Although his tenure in this position was short, he worked not only to alleviate the immediate post-war food shortage through the International Emergency Food Committee but also to propose comprehensive plans for improving food production and its equitable distribution--his proposal to create a World Food Board. Although the board failed to get the support of Britain and the US, he had laid a firm foundation for the new U.N. specialized agency.

In 1949 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his scientific research into nutrition, donating the entire financial award to organizations devoted to world peace and a united world government.

In 1960 he became the co-founder and the first President of the World Academy of Art and Science

Happy birthday Scottish television presenter, nutritionist and writer, Gillian McKeith, born on September 28th 1958 in the fair city of Perth.

Gillian was brought up on a council estate in Perth, her dad was a shipyard worker and mum an office worker. She has said that she was raised eating the junk food she now advises against: “We all know the kind of food I grew up with—a typical Scottish diet. We’d have meat three times a day. I certainly never ate a mango, and had no idea what macrobiotic meant.”

Gillian is best known as a television presenter and writer. She is the former host of Channel 4’s You Are What You Eat and Granada Television’s Dr Gillian McKeith’s Feel Fab Forever, and as of 2010 presents Eat Yourself Sexy on the W Network in Canada.

She is the author of several books about nutrition.