DIETARY STUDIES IN PHILADELPHIA AND CHICAGO, 



181)-2-03. 



By Ellex H. Richards, 



Instnictor in Sanhanj Chemistrii 3I(i>'mch'i(.set(s InstUvte of Technology, 



AND 



Amelia Shapleigh. 

 Button Fellov College Settlement Association. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During- the year 1892-93 observations were made, at the instance of 

 the Colleg-e Settlement Association, of the food consumption and 

 dietary customs of families with small incomes living- in those sections 

 of Philadelphia and Chicago in which the work of the Settlements was 

 carried on. The primary purpose of these investigations was to 

 obtain reliable information regarding the diet of the people of those 

 regions, which could be used in the efforts to help them to improve 

 their material condition. While the dietary statistics gathered then 

 are somewhat less complete and perhaps less accurate than those of 

 similar investigations carried on at the present time, they nevertheless 

 give important facts concerning the dietary customs of families of 

 small incomes, and form a valuable contribution to our knowledge 

 concerning the food consumption of people under different circum- 

 stances in life. 



In a report f' made by one of us (A. S.) upon the completion of the 

 investigations the nutritive values of the dietaries thus collected were 

 given as estimated according to such data as were then available 

 regarding the composition and fuel value of food materials, the rela- 

 tive food consumption of persons of different age, sex, and occupa- 

 tion, etc.; only four studies, however, were given in detail. Four of 

 the studies were brietly reported in a discussion of dietaries for wage- 

 earners and their families, contributed by one of us (E. H. R.) to a 

 publication of the New Jersey State Board of Health.* The remamder 

 have never hitherto been published. In the present repoi't are given 

 the details of all the dietary studies completed at that time except a 



« Partial report of Button Fellow College Settlement Association, 1892-93. 

 &New Jersey State Board of Health Rpt., 17 (1893), p. 425. See also The Cost of 

 Food, New York, 1901, p. 119. 



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