NUTRITIONAL REQUIREMENTS IN INFANCY AND IN CHILDHOOD

Abstract

I. RECOMMENDED DAILY ALLOWANCES Since the daily allowances for specific nutrients by the National Nutritional Conference of June 1941 represent the consensusof the leading authorities on nutrition in this country, their consideration provides a convenient means of discussing recent opinion on this subject. The recommended daily allowances, not or optimal are presented in the accompanying table. If one considers the unsatisfactory nature of minimal requirements as dietary standards and the difficulty of establishing optimal requirements, the wisdom of the nomenclature used becomes apparent. Column I gives the caloric allowances for persons of various ages and women during pregnancy and lactation. The figures are rough approximations of total allowances except for infants under 1 year of age, for whom the figure is in terms of calories per kilogram of body weight. This figure of 100 calories per kilogram is perhaps low for small infants. The allowances