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Average Nutrient Intake

Table 3 shows the comparison of the average nutrient intake per child for one week in September and March of the children taking part in the inquiry.

Table 4 compares the actual nutrient intake for a day, weighed in accordance with the age composition of the sample.

Accepting the League of Nations standard and taking account of over-estimation, the group as a whole had in September a sufficient intake in Calories, Vitamin B1 and Vitamin C, a deficiency in Calcium, and apparently a slight deficiency in Iron, Vitamin A and Protein.

In March, the intake of all nutrients with the exception of Vit. B.1 and C, is below the League of Nations standard, and the intake of Vit. C. would have been considerably lower if oranges had not been distributed during the investigation week. Calcium and iron are most deficient.

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AVERAGE INTAKE OF FOOD QUANTITIES

The next table (5) shows the average food quantities eaten during the two record weeks.

The differences of the food intake in September and March are very slight - more milk and fruits and tomatoes are eaten in September than in March. More soups and stews are eaten in March. This difference is mainly caused by the more frequent serving of soups and stews in schoolmeals in March as compared with September.

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Group Differences

The material was analysed by certain classification data. Where the data show any divergence from the average, they are presented in the next pages.

The results were analysed by 6 factors, food expenditure, age, by whether the mother was working or not, by whether the child took schoolmeals or not, by sex, by number in family.

The differences between the groups are not very striking and may not be statistically significant, though a definite trend appears to be present in most of them. The results are presented as average intake for one week of nutrients weighted according to age, expressed as proportion of League of Nations standard.

For all practical purposes there is no difference between the nutrient intake of the children in the two towns, though the average for Salford is slightly lower in both investigations.

In both investigations the average intake for girls is slightly lower than it is for boys. This is more marked in the March investigation.

The younger age-groups are relatively better fed than the older ones. Whether this is due to a wrong standard or due to the fact that the younger children are relatively better fed, cannot be decided here.

Both inquiries show that the diet of those children whose mothers are not working is slightly superior to those whose mothers are working.

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Schoolmeals taken or not

The children who take school meals have a slightly higher intake of nutrients, with one exception; in the March inquiry the average intake for one week of Vit. C. of the children who take school meals is lower than the average for the children who do not take them. The explanation for this is not material but methodological. In the March inquiry very extensive biochemical analyses of school meals for their Vitamin C. content were made and the values found were rather lower than those used in the September inquiry.

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Food Expenditure Group

In accordance with the wishes of the Ministry of Health, food expenditure was not classified per head, but per expenditure unit. The Ministry of Health provided us with standards (Appendix 4). These standards are based on the assumption that the cost of feeding people of different age-groups varies. The cost of a minimum diet for various age-groups was estimated: the cost of an adult male was reckoned as “one expenditure unit” and the cost coefficients of all other persons worked out according to the relative costs of their diet. The food expenditure “per expenditure unit” for each family was obtained by dividing the actual food expenditure per week by the number of food expenditure units in the family. Data on food expenditure could not be obtained accurately enough from all the families in the sample; the next table is, therefore, based on a smaller sample than the previous tables and the results are only given for the September inquiry, as the number in the different groups in the March inquiry were too small to justify statistical analysis.

The table shows that with rising food expenditure the average nutrient intake increases.

An analysis by family size does not show any clear trend, as the factors of family size and food expenditure overlap, particularly in the small families of soldiers with low food expenditure.

Average food intake by day of week

The analysis for the food intake per day was carried out only for the September inquiry.

The most interesting result of this table is that children do not eat very much more on Sundays than on other days, a fact which is contrary to the general belief that on Sunday the consumption of food is considerably greater than during the week.

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Discussion of Method

The dietary method described here aimed at collecting within a short time dietary records from a comparatively large sample chosen at random. In order to achieve this purpose the informants measured their food intake in simple homely measures.

The question is: whether a dietary survey using homely measures is an adequate method of estimating the nutrient intake of unselected groups of people.

The investigation revealed that out of 600 mothers selected at random, 20-25% did not complete their record, particularly mothers with young children and working mothers. In future investigations it would appear better not to use an entirely random sample but stratify by sub-groups and allow for a big enough substitute list to make good the initial loss.

Dietary investigations using the measuring method can rely on obtaining the co-operation of a fairly large number of housewives of the different strata in society.

The method was assumed to be an adequate measure of the nutrient intake of a group after a number of small experiments with students and housewives had shown that it is possible to measure fairly accurately inside a margin of 15%.

Indirect proof of the workability of the method was given by the results of the investigation.

It was to be expected that nutrient intake increases with increase in food expenditure, that due to ration allowances children would get less milk in March than in September, that the children would have the same caloric intake in March as they have in September....all these expectations were confirmed by the results.

The method, though more inaccurate than weighing in obtaining the quantitative food intake, has all the advantages of a dietary method which is based on a relatively big sample. It seems, therefore, worth while to use or at least to experiment with it in future surveys where an estimation of the nutrient intake of a group is wanted.