The Spokane woman. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1921-1935, 1929-07-25
ARE AMERICAN CHILDREN UNDER .NOURISHED?
Our "Poor Little Rich Boys and Girls" Seem To Be
Undernoushed More Often Than Their Poorer Pharmacies
By Barclay
By Betty Barclay

than those coming from wealthy fam
lilies. At least recent investigations
seem to point that way.
Several years ago the Department
of Health of the City of New York con
Quoted survey of one million school
children and found that $4,000 or
more than twenty per cent were SER
iously undernourished and in immedi.
ate need of a physicians care! while
611,000 or over sixty per cent were
on the borderline of malnutrition; and
only trifie over seventeen per cent
perfectly normal.
This created much comment at the
time. but undoubtedly most fathers
and mothers outside of New York or
other metropolitan centers decided
that undernourishment was largely a
city problem and that their particular
children were in no danger whatever.
The poverty of the slums of the great
city had been talked about for genera
tions, and what could one expect
and with this reflection, the matter
was forgotten.
In a recent issue of the New Jersey
Journal of Education, however, Dr.
Daniel II. Hodgdon outlines the results
of a more recent investigation which
seems to prove that undernourishment
is not the sole property of the poor
child, but rather that it leans toward
the children of the family of moderate
means, and even more forcibly toward
those of well-to-do parents.
Dr. Hodgdon has unearthed some
thing that should be of vital interest
to the parents of today. After an in
act iyot i'm thrnn hn
that the percentage of malnourished
children showing more than ten per
cent underweight was never as high in
school patronized by poor children
as in another catering to the well-to-do.
In third school, attended by children
from families of modern means, the
percentage of undernourished was low
er in certain grades, higher in others,
and tied in one, with that of the poorer
school-but as a whole the tots of
modern means were not as healthy as
the poor children.
Percentages were kept by grades
In the first grade the high percentage
of malnourished children was found to
be in the school attended by children
from middle-class homes. In the Sec
ond, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh
grades, the children from well-to-do
families made by far the worse show
ing. In the third grade, the moderate
and the well-to-do tied for the poorest
showing percentage being more
than twice that of the poorer children
in the third school.
There is evidently food for thought
here. 1t looks as though lack of food
is far less responsible for undernour-
ishment than the eating of the wrong
food.
At any rate, in one of the schools
mentioned above, two groups of NAL
nutritious children between the ages
of five and six years were selected so
that there were twenty children in
each group. One group was fed orange
juice and milk; one teaspoonful OF
orange juice with each glass of milk.
The other group was fed plain pas
teurized milk of good quality.
The orange fed group had an ay!'
erage gain of two and one-half times
that of the milk fed group at the end
of twenty weeks and in the orange fed
group there was no evidence of malnu
triton left.
Isn't there food for thought here?
One begins to see why it is that the
dirty little urchin with a piece of fruit
or a raw carrot in his hand looks more
robust than the spoiled child of more
affluent parents-a child that may have
so many foods to choose from that he
makes it a practice to choose those
that appeal to his taste, while he ig-
nores many that are needed for
hoo1fh'c oakn