NORMAL, AVERAGE, AND IDEAL STATES OF NUTRITION. 73 



ductive of a fullness of development and addition of flesh that may 

 be termed ideal. When the child has too little flesh it is very obvious, 

 and likewise when it has too much flesh. The problem then arises as 

 to what is the best proportion between weight and height for children. 

 Should children be somewhat light in build or distinctly overweight, 

 as judged by the popular conception of underweight and overweight 

 when applied to children? Referring again to our private-school 

 data, we find that although these children are heavier and taller than 

 other series of normal children at the same age, when the height 

 and weight are compared they are on the whole somewhat thinner 

 for their height than are our normal laboratory children selected for 

 this study. On the basis only of weight referred to height, therefore, 

 it would appear as if our laboratory children had somewhat the 

 advantage over the group of private-school children, i. e., so far as 

 proportion is concerned. It still remains a fact, however, that had 

 our laboratory children been given the advantages of private-school 

 children, namely, outdoor life, better medical care, operative treat- 

 ment if needed, and better diet, particularly with regard to growth- 

 promoting factors, the skeletal growth would probably have been 

 greater than actually noted. 



The question is a serious one, then, as to whether we should con- 

 sider a child of a certain age who has a large proportion of flesh for 

 his height a better nourished child than one of the same age who is 

 taller and at the same tune heavier, but in whom the proportion 

 between weight and height is not so great as with the shorter child. 

 This question leads us to a consideration of the importance of the diet 

 factors which play a role in growth. No one would seek for abnormal 

 rapidity in the growth of children. In the normal development of the 

 child growth proceeds with a considerable degree of regularity and, 

 on the average, at a certain rate of rapidity. When children, however, 

 are subjected to ideal outdoor life, with plenty of food and excellent 

 medical care, they do grow in skeletal form, at least, as well as in 

 total weight at a somewhat greater rate than otherwise. Is this 

 desirable or not? Everything points to the desirability of this condi- 

 tion, and yet on close analysis it is seen that these private-school 

 children do not have the proportion of weight to height found with the 

 group of laboratory children selected for our measurements. Which, 

 therefore, of the two factors is the most important in the process of 

 growth, height or weight? The striking difference between the 

 private-school children and our laboratory children is the greater 

 height and correspondingly greater weight of the former, although the 

 weight is in all probability simply a natural concomitant of the height. 

 The fact that the obviously ideal conditions of private-school life 

 result in this increased growth would seem to be prima facie evidence 

 of its desirability. On the other hand, we must consider for a moment 



