Metabolic Patterns in Preadolescent Children

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Abstract
The amount of fat in the diets and feces was determined for 35 girls, 7 to 9 years of age, as one segment in a series of metabolic studies. The controlled diets were composed of ordinary foods with the level of protein as the chief variable and with the fat providing from 28 to 33% of the total calories. For the three series of studies, the average daily intake of fat was 66, 69 and 79 gm and, correspondingly, the average daily fecal fat was 3.6, 2.6 and 3.2 gm. The apparent digestibility of the fat ranged from 94 to 96%. Under the conditions of these studies the fecal fat of preadolescent girls increased 0.05 gm as the fat intake increased 1 gm, when data were expressed on a per kilogram of body weight basis. This increase in fecal fat was statistically significant in two of the three studies.