Nutrition, Growth, Development, and Maturation: Findings From the Ten-State Nutrition Survey of 1968-1970

The Ten-State Nutrition Survey of 1968-1970 contributed far more information on nutrition and growth than was originally anticipated. In addition to quantification of the relationship between economic level and size and growth progress and demonstrating the concomitants of obesity and the effects of leanness, the results pointed out major gaps in our knowledge and provided a new body of substantive important information. The survey did not find pot-bellied, spiderlimbed malnutrition of the starvation level. It did not suggest the prevalence of "hunger" of a kind widely advertised in a 1967 television spectacular. What it did show was that the dimensions of poverty could be spelled out in smaller size and lesser growth. It also showed interactions between economic level and size and growth performance in blacks and whites. Among the novel and serendipitous findings were those showing dimensional, developmental, and temporal differences between black and white children who were carefully matched for economic level. The study showed the simple effect of level of fatness on both tempo and amount of growth. It demonstrated the antecedents of obesity in socioeconomic context. And it showed the differing participation of different organ systems and measures of somatic and skeletal development. The Ten-State Nutrition Survey has been criticized first for directing attention to the poor, and second because it was not exclusively a survey of the poor. Yet, we now have data that never before existed. These data show the exact dimensional and developmental comparisons, both of the children of the poor and those of median incomes.