Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1940-08-09
New Gauge for
Child Nutrition
Chart and Graph System Is
Applied to Problem in
Latest Method.

OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES of a
radically new method of measuring
child nutrition here is believed to
have ended years of search by ply
sicians for an accurate yardstick OF
nutrition.
The method, outlined by DR.. Nor
man c. Wetzel, associate professor
Of pediatrics at Western Reserve
university, is based on the direct
study of 1923 Cleveland school chill
dren and records of more than
4,000,000 children during the last 100
years.
The system involves the use of
a grid" or. chart into which any
child can be fitted.
Preliminary application Of the
chart indicated that Is of every 100
local school children either are in
adequately nourished or are in need
of comprehensive medical examina-
ton. The record was believed COM
parable to that existing generally
in the United States.
OyStem Easily AppHcu.
DR.. Wetzel said that, unlike all
previous systems, it has proved
both accurate and easily applied.
He said that it offered an answer
to the serious problem of selecting
the city's malnourished children, a
problem which thWarted health Of
ficers seeking to prove the effects of
Cleveland's relief crisis on child
health.
He pointed out that most systems
have been either too elaborate for
practical use or have failed to al
low for the extent to which a par
ticular child can depart from aver
age physical characteristics and
still be nourished properly and in
good health.
He said the feature of the system
is the grid" by which the child's
"nutritional grade" is established.
1t was designed specifically to be
applied by such workers as school
nurses, requires very little time for
each child, and necessitates only
minimum amount of calculation.
The chart utilizes the child's
height and weight to determine the
physical type with which he should
be classed and then the child is
fitted into the "grid" according to
his physical and nutritional state,
such as over-nourished, stocky,
good, fair, borderline or poor.
Plotted 1900 Children.
DR.. Wetzel, who has published a
number of previous papers on child
physical development, plotted near
ly 1000 children studied at Harvard
university also and examined all
important records of the sort in
celebrating the graph.
He pointed out that previously
even the judgment of "the most ex-
perienced examiners" has been
found to wary conspicuously" in
diagnosing malnutrition.
"No single method nor any COM
bination of methods" he said, "how-
ever elaborate or expensive, has
been universally recognized as reli-
able or consistently trustworthy aid
to the examiner in rendering judg-
ment upon the physical condition
of the individual child or a group
of children"
The new system, he explained,
promised to identify those children
whose health is sub-par because Of
inadequate nutrition or other causes
so that they may receive thorough
medical inspection.
DR.. Wetzel headed special group
established to work out nutritional
at the suggestion Of
DR.. Henry j. Gerstenberger, profess
sor of pediatrics, who is head of a
committee of pediatricians serving
Mayor Harold H. Burton's advisory
committee on nutrition.