RECOMMENDED DIETARY ALLOWANCES

This review discusses five questions concerning nutrition in adolescence. 1. Do adolescents have special nutritional needs? 2. What are the recommended dietary intakes? 3. What do adolescent schoolchildren eat? 4. What nutritional disorders occur at this age? The prevalence of iron deficiency anaemia, rickets, coeliac disease, iodine deficiency, dental caries, weight disorders, zinc deficiency and pellagra are discussed. 5. What is the role of school meals or other food supplementation programmes? The primary school years (5-11 in Britain) are relatively quiet nutritionally. Growth occurs at a steady rate neither accelerating nor decelerating, nutritional diseases are less common and in the majority no profound biological events occur. Nutritional interest is in the secondary school child (11-18 years in Britain) particularly in the events of puberty and adolescence. This review aims to determine five points concerning adolescents. Do they have special nutritional needs? What are their recommended dietary intakes? What do they eat? What nutritional disorders occur at this age? What is the role of school meals or other food supplementation programmes? NUTRITIONAL NEEDS Table 1 shows the changes in body size during these years. Girls experience a growth 'spurt ' earlier than boys which is probably around its peak at menarche decelerating thereafter; there is a general increase in stature but a particular feature is the deposition of subcutaneous fat. Boys enter their growth spurt later; they grow taller with a greater skeletal mass which is clothed more by muscle than fat; the testicles become bigger