This paper explores the meaning of child health as applied by Dutch school doctors and the way it was adapted to the rapidly improving standard of living and the increasing importance of mental health after World War II. It focuses on both the national discourse and school doctors’ daily activities. For the latter the countryside of the Province of Groningen, a relatively poor area, is chosen. Despite assertions that their profession subscribed to a new, positive and inclusive, concept of health, introduced by the WHO in 1948, the Groningen school doctors continued to use a negative concept of a “healthy” schoolchild until well after world War II. It was a child that was not bothered by diseases or infirmities or any other “abnormalities”. They clung to the original aim of school medical inspection: the promotion of the school’s efficiency by the reduction of possible dangers threatening pupils’ learning capacity. In the postwar years these threats were more often found in an unfavorable school climate, with too large classes and too much intellectual work, producing “mental overburdening”. In doing so they made their concept of health more inclusive by linking up physical and mental health. Resumen Este trabajo explora el significado de la salud infantil, aplicado por los médicos escolares holandeses entre 1930 y 1970, y la forma en que ello reflejó el rápido aumento del nivel de vida y la creciente importancia de la salud mental después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Este se centra tanto en el discurso nacional como en las actividades diarias de los médicos escolares. En relación a este último, se ha estudiado la zona rural de la provincia de Groningen. A pesar de las afirmaciones de que su profesión se había adherido a un concepto nuevo, positivo e inclusivo de la salud, introducido por la Organización Mundial de la Salud en 1948, los médicos escolares de Groningen continuaron utilizando un concepto negativo de escolares «sanos» hasta mucho después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial: un niño o niña que no había ...