FOOD OF RURy\L CHILDREN 101 



and iinniunity or susceptibility to various types of disease common to colored 

 populations, it was felt that the inclusion of data upon colored children with 

 those concerning white children would make the total group too heterogeneous 

 for valid conclusions. No attempt was made to make a separate study of 

 tiie colored children of either Carver or Southwick because it was not feasible 

 10 secure home records. 



The principal differences between Carver and Southwick, so fur as this study 

 is concerned, lie in their industries and their schools and the effects of these 

 on food habits: — cranberries on the one hand and dairy cows on the other; 

 centralized schools to which most of the pupils travel by bus, and one-room 

 l)uildings scattered over the countryside so that many of the pupils not only 

 walk to school in the morning and liome at night, but also go home for the 

 noon meal. 



Number of Records Secured 



As may be seen in Table 3, in each of the towns records were obtained from 

 51 families of native or mixed parentage, the 51 Carver families having 9-5 

 children in the elementary schools and the Southwick families 93. In 29 of the 

 Carver families with both parents foreign-born, some one was found who spoke 

 English well enough to give the information desired for the home record; in 

 Southwick, in only 13 families with Ijoth parents foreign-born could records 



Table 3. Children and Families with Home Records 



Total 



85 



17 



42 



144 



188 

 87 



144 

 131 

 275 



(a) Finnish, 19: French t'anatiian, 9; Italian. 1. 



(b) Polish, 4; Swedish. 4; Italian, 1; Czechoslovak, 1; Finnish, 1; Irish. 1; 

 French Canadian, 1. 



be secured. Food liistories, tiierefore, were secured for 60 Carver children 

 and for 27 Southwick children of foreign parentage. The distribution of the 

 children by age and sex is shown in Table 4. 



Dental examinations were made on 168 of Carver's white children, 105 of 

 these I)eing of native or mixed parentage and 63 of foreign; in Southwick, 232 

 children, 115 of native or mixed and 117 of foreign parentage. 



Procedure in the Field 



Through the kindness of the superintendents of schools, the official registers 

 were used to obtain the names of the children in each of the elementary grades, 

 sex and age, name of parent or guardian, and home address. Both superin- 



