That this degree of nutritional stability is not as prevalent in this country as might be desired is disclosed by reports upon findings of the examining boards for army service, over a period of three years, and physical examinations of various groups of school children throughout the country. It was found in the first case, that about sixteen per cent. of the apparently normal young men who were inspected for military service, were undernourished in some degree, and according to Dr. Thomas W. Wood, Professor of Physical Education, Columbia University, “Five million children in the United States are suffering from malnutrition.” This army of undernourished children, which represents about one third of the children of the country, is on the broad highway to ill health, invalidism of various kinds and degrees, instability and inefficiency. They are certainly not developing into the clear-eyed, alert, buoyant individuals that go to make up good citizenry.
The tragic aspect of this state of undernourishment is that though a great deal can be done to nourish and build up the malnourished child or adult, a certain amount of damage that results from inadequate nourishment during the early, formative weeks and months cannot be entirely repaired later on in life.
As the baby grows and develops, certain substances are needed at the various stages of his progress, and if these are not supplied at these stages, there will always be some degree of inadequacy in the adult make up. It is much like the futility, when building a house, of using bricks without straw for the foundation instead of firm, durable rock, and then trying to make the structure substantial and secure later on by using good materials when building the upper stories.
The solid foundation and substantial beams and girders for men and women are put in during infancy and early childhood in the shape of good material that forms good nerves, muscles, bones, teeth and general physical stability. It is practically impossible to make up to the older child or adult for damage caused by failure to supply sufficient nourishment to the growing, developing, infant body.
“The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
We see all about us, the results of this form of neglect of babies, in the bow-legged, knock-kneed, undersized, misshapen, chicken-breasted adults and in those who are nervous and below par in endurance; are susceptible to colds and other infections and may be summed up as being “not strong.”
The reasons for much of the undernourishment among people in this country to-day are to be found in certain widespread misconceptions of long standing as to what constitutes a state of good nutrition or malnutrition and the value and purposes of different foodstuffs. For malnutrition does not necessarily describe a simple condition due to an insufficient amount of food, but to any one of several complex conditions due to a lack in the food of one or more essential substances.