Show k Doctor Doctorin in the Kit Kitten henO by Laurence Laurenc M ht Hursh MD M.D. Consultant National Dairy cou Council ctt THINGS WE NEED TO KNOW Increasingly ly health leaders ore are becoming concerned with willi what we dont don't know about shout cultural forces that Influence how people eat cat We know a great deal about nutrition and how people should cat eat But Du influencing people to do what Is best for or them is another matter For starters we must admit that we ve are not even ven all that sure what I attitudes people have concerning food And certainly attitudes altitudes are arc different among mong cultural groups In these d days ys attitudes and practices practices tices themselves are not fixed po Changes Changes' are occurring and while we pursue what people think their very attitudes altitudes may maybe maybe maybe be changing or about to change because of general behavior changes some of which may even be based on the sudden availability availability of or new kinds of or foods Things Change Too What I am really saying is is that people within a certain cultural group not only are doing things differently from grandma or their parents parents' because life styles themselves themselves them them- selves change People also change because like snack foods and television television tele tele- vision things that didn't used to tobe tobe tobe be in existence now can change the eating habits of the entire family almost overnight So if we are going to learn how nutritional nutritional we can all improve our health we are going to have to increase our study of these cultural forces How lIow serious is ignorance or the lack of our applying what we ve already already al aI- should do ready know we A mere mer case in point recently revealed itself in a study of mid middie middie die class rural Tennessee c teenage teen age high school students Th The Tha students listed everything the they had eaten caten or drunk including snacks for the preceding 24 hours and answered qu questions about food likes and dislikes Statistics Varied Twenty per cent of tho the girls girts and 10 per cent of the boys had hadnot hadnot not had any breakfast that morn mom ing One-fourth One of the girls and 10 per cent of the boys did not drink any milk Vegetables Vegetables- were the tho most disliked foods More Mora than three-fourths three of the students had failed to eat any kind of green or yellow vegetable on the day records were kept Only two per cent of th the boys and less than one per cent of the girls had diets that could be rated very good Only 25 per cent of ol the boys and 10 per cent of the tha girls rated satisfactory borderline borderline border border- line adequacy Three-fourths Three of the boys and 80 per cent of the tha th girls had low Intakes intakes' of tw two or 01 more nutrients in their days day's meals Those nutrients most frequently frequently frequently fre fre- Inadequate were Iron calcium and vitamins A and C. C Forty per cent of the girls girts werd low in iron and calcium When the students in biochemical tests of their nutritional status it was additionally ad d. d learned that 10 per percent percent percent cent had tow low levels of riboflavin and rind of vitamin C C. C and 5 per cent showed meaningful low levels of vitamin A in their blood Wood |