Some Preliminary Biochemical Findings in Junior High School Children in Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York

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Abstract
To help clarify the degree to which the adolescent child represents a nutritional problem, three schools (M, L and J), each representing different racial, social and economic backgrounds, were selected for a nutritional status survey. Approximately 400 children, mostly between the ages of twelve and fifteen years and divided almost equally as to sex, took part in the survey. Interview data on the subjects included age, race, occupation of the father, breakfast intake and a supplement record. There were 122 Negro and 282 white children; most of the negro children attended school M, 90 per cent of the white children attended schools L and J (Fig. 2). The fathers of 30 per cent of the children in school M (Table iii) were not in the home, a percentage three times greater than that for fathers of subjects in school L and ten times greater than that for those in school J. There were more fathers in the professional-managerial classification for subjects in school L (44 per cent) than in any other category; most of the fathers in school J were classified as skilled laborers (35 per cent) or laborers (38 per cent), while the majority of the fathers of subjects in school M were laborers (52 per cent). Breakfasts were analyzed for calorie, protein, iron, thiamine, riboflavin and ascorbic acid intakes. In each instance the average intake was lowest for school M and highest for school L (Fig. 8). More children in school M (47 per cent) had consumed no food that morning. Twelve per cent of the study group had taken a supplement on the day the sample was drawn, while 7 per cent took supplements occasionally; a slightly greater number of children in school J ingested supplements than the subjects in either of the other schools. All subjects were weighed, and heights and skinfold thickness of the arm (triceps) were also determined. Each of these measurements were ranked according to sex and age, and the per cent average weight was calculated from the height, age and sex. There were relationships for each of these parameters, particularly for the male subjects from school M who tended to cluster in the lighter and shorter weight and height zones and the very thin skinfold thickness category; in addition, their per cent average weight as a group was the lowest (101 per cent). From each subject blood and urine samples were collected on which the following determinations were made: glucose, hematocrit, ascorbic acid and erythrocyte transketolase activity (blood); creatinine, riboflavin, thiamine, folic and folinic acids (urine). Because of the lack of specific interpretive guides for the adolescent, a variety of criteria were used for evaluation (Table iii). With the exception of blood glucose, there were varying degrees of differences among the three schools on each of these determinations. Subjects from school M had a slightly lower average hematocrit, largely due to the greater number of female subjects from that school in the low (ICNND) classification. Although no values for ascorbic acid were below the acceptable values according to ICNND standards, the average plasma ascorbic acid value for school M was about half as great as the average in school L. The question of whether or not adolescents require more ascorbic acid for growth and development than the adult still needs to be resolved. There were a large number of low values for hexose and pentose when erythrocyte hemolysate transketolase activity was determined. The high incidence of this phenomenon among the Negro population in this study clearly indicates the need for further investigation before any implications of nutritional inadequacy can be drawn from this observation. Ten subjects with TPP effects above 15 per cent for both hexose and pentose also had both a low intake of thiamine at breakfast and an urinary excretion of thiamine lower than average (for the group). Average urinary excretions for the various groups were within acceptable ranges, except possibly for the female subjects who did not take supplements from school M. Urinary riboflavin excretion was higher than thiamine excretion, and the averages for all groups in this respect were well above the acceptable or high categories. Percentage distributions for urinary excretion of folic acid showed similar findings among the three schools, but data for folinic acid indicated lower levels of excretion for children from school M than for the children in schools L and J. The question whether this observation was related to the lower ascorbic acid levels of these children indicates a need for further study in this area. Correlation coefficients (Table viii) indicated highly significant relationships between various parameters of the study. The need for specific guides to evaluate adolescent nutrition was apparent, particularly for school M, which might be considered a “borderline situation.” There were slight indications that the growth of the male subjects in this school had not been as great as that of the subjects in the other schools with whom they were compared. This fact was supported by somewhat lower average levels in the other parameters, the interpretation of which depends on the criteria used. The differences between schools appeared to be greater than the difference between male and female subjects, but the per cent of female subjects in less than acceptable categories was usually larger than the per cent of male subjects in the same categories, despite the fact that a greater number of girls were more than ten per cent above average weight. The differences between school M and schools J and L also indicate a relationship between the socioeconomic status and certain nutrition factors. On the other hand, in view of the similarities between schools L and J, the differences in background must perhaps be fairly extensive before they effect the various indices of nutritional status which were measured in this study.