A Study On The Military And Civilian Nutrition Security System Of The Nanjing National Government During The War Of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Of China

The ancient Chinese have long recognized the relationship between food and health from their life experience.Chinese health culture and the theory of ‘medicine and food homology’ in Traditional Chinese Medicine contain the concept of nutrition.With the development of medicine and organic chemistry in the 19 th century,the elements of food,the physiological function of specific nutrients in relation to diseases were discovered one after another,which has gradually changed people ’s understanding of diet health.And People began to analyze the relationship between food and human health from in quantitative terms,laying the foundation for modern nutrition.Since modern times,with the eastward spread of Western learning,modern Western nutrition has been introduced into China,and modern nutrition in china has gained initial development.After the outbreak of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression,national health,as an important factor affecting the war,drew the attention of the Nanjing National Government.Through the investigation on the nutritional status of military and civilians in wartime,nutritionists found that malnutrition and nutritional deficiency diseases were increasingly serious due to insufficient food and unreasonable dietary structure,and military and civilian nutrition became one of the important issues related to the success or failure of war.In order to provide support and confidence for the lasting war of resistance against Japan,the Nanjing National Government tried to improve the nutritional condition of the military and civilians through a series of policies and measures,and gradually established the wartime nutritional security system for the military and civilians.The policies and measures implemented include : the policy of increasing food production— increasing food production by reclaiming wasteland,promoting winter farming,fine new varieties of agricuitural products and miscellaneous grain planting to alleviate the food shortage;the establishment of the wartime subsistence allowance system for public education personnel to provide livelihood protection for civil servants and teachers in the forms of subsidies in kind or in lieu of money to stabilize people’s morale;the establishment of the central nutrition research Institute and the convening of nutritionists to focus on how to protect military and civilian nutrition in wartime and fomulate national nutritional remedies;the advancement of nutrition improvement campaigns to guide people on how to improve their nutrition from their daily diet through various forms of nutrition information activities and training courses;through research on nutrition protection for the military to drew up dierary structure improvement policy and ensure minimum nutritional standards,as well as focus on improving the nutrition of sick and wounded soldiers to accelerate their recovery as soon as possible,thereby improving the army’s overall combat capability.Through this system,the Nanjing National Government hoped to achieve the goal of saving and stregthening the country through nutrition.The establishment of the military-civilian nutrition security system in wartime did not happen overnight.It was driven by the war and the real needs of the Nanjing National Government.And was supplemented and improved as the war processed.And it was remedy to advance the nutrition of the military and civilians.This system was a practice of Nanjing National Government to use nutrition knowledge and research results to resist Japan’s invasion in the face of the continuous deterioration of the nutritional health of the military and civilians.In the midst of a deepening national crisis,nutrition was integrated into the national system,providing a scientific basis for national decision-making.Although this system had limitations,it did,to a certain extent,ensure the nutritional health of the military and civilians during the war,boosted the morale of the resistance and contributed to its ultimate victory of the war.Nowdays,as the country arttaches more and more importance to national health,a research on the nutritional security system during the War has positive historical implications for today’s government to better promote the Healthy China Strategy and to respond to the national health problems that have emerged in the new era.