During World War II and the years immediately following, a successful Sydney businessman, Lesley Owen (L.O.) Bailey, initiated a unique social experiment. Bailey formed an organisation, the Youth Welfare Association of Australia (YWAA), which took into its care 86 ‘war babies’, 43 boys and 43 girls, children who were unable, for a number of reasons, to be cared for by their natural parents. For the next 20 years, these children were cared for by Bailey and the YWAA in a number of homes throughout NSW, which he established for the purpose, the primary home being located at Hopewood House, Bowral. The children were raised entirely on a natural diet, primarily fresh vegetables and fruit. Formal medical care was limited, with medical interventions emphasising the preventative properties of the natural health diet, rather than the use of conventional medical cures. The children were subjected to regular medical, and in particular dental, surveillance and measurement, the results of which were formally published in learned medical and dental journals in Australia during the 1950s. Bailey’s stated intention was to demonstrate the virtues of his regime of diet and health, and the physical improvements which could be derived from his regime. This thesis examines the bio-political dimensions of Bailey’s project within the context of scientific modernity. Within this context, the project is examined from three major perspectives. First, the project is examined as a eugenics experiment. It is argued that Bailey’s project was eugenically motivated, with the intention in the first instance of improving the physical being of the generation of children under his control. The second major dimension examines the disciplines of bodily regulation within Hopewood, and in particular the Hopewood diet. Diet is viewed as a mode of social discipline, imposed within the framework of a total institution for purposes of bio-political enhancement of the species being. For Bailey, diet is the mode of regulation which enables the eugenic outcome of trans-generational bodily enhancement. Third, the thesis examines the implications of social contructions of childhood within the bio-political context, in particular, issues of the ownership of children and children’s bodies. Bailey’s project was an experiment enacted on the bodies of children, and it is argued that social constructions of childhood, especially the discourses surrounding innocence and socialisation, define social ownership and constrain children’s social membership. This thesis is an examination of how society views children, what society sees as the role of children, and the kinds of practices which these constructions sanction towards children. It also illuminates an episode in the history of the Australian eugenics movement, and especially the eugenics of diet. This thesis is a record of a unique Australian social experiment, and its impact on a number of individual lives / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)