Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-dvmhs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-16T14:34:50.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Physiological and Economic Study of the Diets of Workers in Rural Areas as Compared with those of Workers Resident in Urban Districts.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

A. B. Hill
A. B. Hill
Affiliation:
National Institute for Medical Research, London.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Any conclusions that are reached in such an enquiry as this can only be put forward very tentatively, for they are based (1) upon limited data which cannot be free entirely from error, and (2) upon the averaging of individual results drawn, it is true, from the same class, but from families varying considerably in economic status. For this reason, without much further investigation, any generalisation would be out of place, and the conclusions summarised below are put forward not as definite results but only as indications of the actual facts.

(1) In view of the fact that minimum wage legislation for agricultural workers is being introduced in answer to the statements that the economic status of these workers is deplorably low, it is important to bring forward any facts relating to the actual condition of the rural families.

(2) For an investigation of these conditions, Essex (rural districts) was chosen as the field of enquiry in 1923, and for purposes of comparison and confirmation of results earlier rural investigations have been utilised.

(3) A study of the experimental work on metabolism suggests that the agricultural labourer would certainly need a gross amount of at least 3300 calories per day, and that this assumption will not be likely to err on the side of excess.

(4) The Essex studies of 1923 give a mean value of 2872 calories per man value per day and only 17 per cent. of the families secure over 3300 calories per man per day.

(5) This result is not at variance with the conclusions reached in earlier investigations in rural areas, and the suggestion accordingly is that underfeeding is, to some extent, present in the rural areas. (Lusk writes “it is evident… that one may reduce the basal requirement of energy by undernutrition, and that this process may largely economise food, but that to accomplish a given amount of work a fixed amount of food-fuel is required, irrespective of the nutritive condition of the organism.”)

(6) This under-feeding occurs although nearly three-quarters of the total income is spent on food (leaving a very small amount for other essentials and practically nothing for non-essentials), and although the diet is substantially increased by the consumption of home produce. Without the latter the diet would be seriously deficient.

(7) In the Essex studies nearly one-third of the money spent on food was devoted to bread and flour.

(8) On the other hand, in comparison with urban studies, the rural diet compares very favourably with that of urban workers possessed of a higher money income.

(9) This advantage to the rural family is gained by (a) a larger percentage expenditure on food; (b) a less varied diet containing a substantially smaller amount of meats and hence less animal protein; a substantially larger amount of breadstuffs and hence more carbohydrates in place of fats1; (c) by the consumption of home produce, which, however, entails, in its turn, a lengthening of the day's work and increased needs for food. Without this home produce the diets would compare very unfavourably with those of the urban workers studied. With it, the Vitamine content, as well as the energy value of the diet, must be substantially increased.

(10) In spite of the diet being low there is little evidence of malnutrition amoung the rural children of Essex, and their physique is better, age for age, than that of urban children, living on a diet equivalent or superior in energy value. Other factors, especially the “racial” factor and the “fresh air and sunlight” factor, however, must exert such an influence that the efficacy of the diets cannot be satisfactorily measured by a comparison of heights and weights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , October 1925 , pp. 189 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1925

References

Ashby, A. W. (XII. 1924, I and II, 1925). Farm Workers' Budgets. Journ. of the Ministry of Agriculture.Google Scholar
Bowley, A. L. and Burnett-Hurst, A. R. (1915). Livelihood and Poverty, with supplementary chapter 1920.Google Scholar
Carver, A. E. (1914). An Investigation into the Dierty of the Labouring Classes of Birmingham, with special reference to its bearing upon tuberculosis.Google Scholar
Cd. 1761 (1903). Board of Trade inquiry into the Consumption of Food and cost of living of working classes in the United Kingdom and certain foreign countries.Google Scholar
Cmd. 76 (1919). Report of the Committee of the Agricultural Wages Board on the financial results of the occupation of agricultural land and the cost of living of rural workers.Google Scholar
Cmd. 2145 (1924). Final Report of the Agricultural Tribunal of Investigation.Google Scholar
Du Bois, E. F. (VI. 1916). The metabolism of boys 12 and 13 years old compared with the metabolism at other ages. Arch. Int. Med. p. 887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunluce, Lord and Greenwood, M. (1918). An inquiry into the composition of dietaries, with special reference to the dietaries of munition workers. Medical Research Committee. Special Report Series, No. 13.Google Scholar
Elderton, E. M. (1914). Height and Weight of School Children in Glasgow. Biometrika, X. 288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Essex County Council (1919). Report of Special Committee upon Rural deveiopment.Google Scholar
Essex County Council (1921). Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M. (1916). The family budgets and dietaries of forty labouring class families in Glasgow in war time. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. XXXVII. Part II. No. 8.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M. (1917). A study of social and economic factors in the causation of rickets. Medical Research Council. Special Report Series, No. 20.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M. (1918). A further study of the diets of labouring class families in Glasgow in war time. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. XXXVIII.Google Scholar
Ferguson, M. (1919). The diets of labouring class families during the course of the war. Journ. of Hyg. XVIII. 409.Google Scholar
Gephart, F. C. (1917). Report of a dietary Study of St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire. Boston Med. and Surg. Journ. CLXXVI. 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwood, M. (1924). On some statistical aspects of the problem of human nutrition. Metron. III. 3–4.Google Scholar
Greenwood, M. and Thompson, C. (10. VIII. 1918). A note of the Man Value of Working Class Diets. Brit. Med. Journ. II.Google Scholar
Harris, J. A. and Benedict, F. G. (1919). A Biometric Study of Basal Metabolism in Man.Google Scholar
Hill, Leonard (1924). Sunshine and Open Air.Google Scholar
Hill, Leonard and Flack, Martin (3. VI. 1911). Note on the Comparative Nutritive Value of White, Standard and Wholemeal Bread. Brit. Med. Journ. I.Google Scholar
Holdenby, C. (1913). Folk of the Furrow.Google Scholar
Lindsay, D. E. (1913). Study of the Diet of the Labouring Classes in the City of Glasgow, 1911–12.Google Scholar
Lusk, G. (1917). Science of Nutrition.Google Scholar
Lusk, G. (III. 1918). The Fundamental Requirements of Energy for Proper Nutrition. Journ. Amer. Med. Ass. LXX. 821.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lusk, G. (1919). Fundamental basis of nutrition.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, W. A. (x. 1921). Changes in the Standard of Living in the United Kingdom, 1860–1914. Economica, No. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medical Research Council (1924). Report on the Nutrition of Miners and their families. Special Report Series, No. 87.Google Scholar
Rowntree, Seebohm and Kendall, May (1913). How the Labourer Lives.Google Scholar
Royal Society (1919). Food (War) Committee. Report on the Food Requirements of Man.Google Scholar
Smith, Edward (1863). Sixth Annual Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council.Google Scholar
Thresh, J. C. (1919). Housing of the Agricultural Labourer with special reference to the county of Essex.Google Scholar
Tully, A. M. T. (1921). A study of the nutrition and economic conditions of working-class families in Glasgow in April, 1921. Lancet, II. 57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tully, A. M. T. A study of the diets and economic conditions of Artisan families in Glasgow in May, 1923. Glasgow Med. Journ. XIX. n.s. 1.Google Scholar
Tully, A. M. T. and Urie, E. M. (1922). A study of the diets and economic conditions of labouring class families in Glasgow in June, 1922. Glasgow Med. Journ. XVI. n.s. 6.Google Scholar
U.S.A. Public Health Reports (12. I. 1923). XXXVIII. No. 2.Google Scholar