A Survey of the Eating Habits of Fourteen Prairie View Training School Girls

Most parents have come to the realization that it is impossible to have proper growth and development in a child unless he receives the necessary body building materials in his food. Improper growth and development in a child may be due to diets which are insufficient in amounts, inadequate in nutritive elements, and to poor food habits that contribute to malnutrition, either through their effect on the total food eaten, or in the utilization of the food by the body. The development and maintainment of the physical health of a child have come to be regarded as an important part of education. A better understanding of the relation of the diet to disease has resulted in the study of food habits. Authorities feel that a knowledge of nutrition is necessary to every individual in order that he may eat with intelligence and thereby aid in positive health. More adequate knowledge about nutrition should enable one to meet the needs of the child without undue attention, allowing one to be free from fear of eating certain foods and anxious introspection as to what course is wise to pursue. Many children whose development is considered limited by heredity, might make better growth and be free from physical defects if their nutritive conditions were more favorable. In other words, the body should be not as a machine, but as a complex interacting living organism, whose satisfactory cooperation in the task of maintaining good nutrition, is of equal importance to health. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to show how nutritional knowledge may be made to serve as a tool for building positive health