Increasing the Intake of Nutrients While Reversing the Engels Phenomenon

Abstract

To the Editor.— The article entitled Nutritional Improvement of Poor Urban Preschool Children: A 1983-1977 Comparison, by Zee et al 1 predicts the consequences of inadequately supporting the efforts of poor people to obtain nutritious food. They demonstrated that in Memphis, Tenn, the children not enrolled in the Community Supplemental Food Program, who were between 6 months and 2 years of age, showed a mean decrease in hemoglobin levels of 0.3 g/dL. For children between 2 and 6 years of age from these families, the mean decrease was 0.6 g/dL. These data replicate findings in a longitudinal study of inner-city children in Philadelphia during a period of rapidly rising food costs. 2 Here, a mean decrease in hemoglobin levels of 1.2 g/dL was shown for a group of economically dependent children who were between 3 and 10 years of age in both 1972 and 1975. These studies illustrate the Engels