Our association is an association of more than 450 college-trained women whose primary interest in the community is that of welfare and education of children. For several years we have been deeply concerned about the plight of children, who coming from homes where standards of existence are on a submarginal level, must attend school without adequate nourishment. We feel that a hungry child cannot benefit fully from the educational program, however fine, to which he is exposed. We have been aware of the programs, such as surplus foods and community contributions, which have met the needs of these children on a stopgap basis. At our general membership meeting in January 1959, our association voted a contribution to the needy children lunch fund with the understanding that this was a stopgap plan to meet an immediate need. However, our membership expressed the strong conviction that a plan of contributions was not the way to approach a community problem. Our membership expressed the conviction that this should be a tax-supported program. Therefore, we, as a community organization, wish to go on record as supporting the Board of Education and other community organizations in their plea that funds be appropriated in the 1960 budget to set up and provide for a lunch program for the needy children in the elementary schools of the District of Columbia. Very truly yours, Dr. MARY E. BRADSHAW, President. MCLEAN, VA., March 3, 1959 Senator WAYNE MORSE, Washington, D.C. DEAR WAYNE: The morning Post says your District subcommittee is holding a hearing on the needy lunch program idea for District of Columbia schools in the morning, Wednesday, March 4. I was surprised to learn from this volunteer-donation appeal in the District of Columbia papers recently, that schools in such a progressive fine city as our Nation's Capital didn't have such a program. It is shocking. I've made my donation (small though it is) but where is our sense of values, when millions of dollars can be tossed away by our lawmakers (not including you), to tear up the entire front of the Capitol and add 30 feet of space, presumably for another restaurant on the Hill. This amount would add lunchrooms to all the District of Columbia schools. Just to raise the $30,000 needed urgently to feed the 1,800 most needy, really hungry schoolchildren, would be easy if the $11,000 voted so freely for ex-Speaker Martin's Cadillac had been voted to feed these hungry children. Think what fine luncheon wings could be added to all the school for the $14,000 extra each Congressman wants in addition to his already handsome office allotment for a new salary for an administrative assistant. (If they cut down a little on strictly "reelection-aimed correspondence" this extra money wouldn't be necessary.) Since you are such a champion of right thinking, with a true sense of values that some of the others seem to have lost in the general trend of not voting against some nice thing or money requested by their colleagues on the Hill, I thought I'd unburden myself to you. We have a fine school cafeteria at Franklin-Sherman School, in McLean, where all the children get a hot, well-balanced lunch for 25 cents. Needy ones get it free. Government surplus-food donations help hold down the cost. Also mothers of some of the schoolchildren assist 1 day as volunteers to serve food in the cafeteria line, but the regular staff is paid. As a mother of two children in this school, I thought all schools in the District of Columbia area had similar programs. I hope your committee can help get the District such a cafeteria program. It'll save money spent on juvenile delinquency later. Cordially, GRACE KEMPTON, Senator MORSE. We will now stand in recess until Wednesday, 2 p.m. (Whereupon, the subcommittee recessed to reconvene on Wednesday, March 11, 1959, at 2 p.m.) PROBLEMS OF HUNGRY CHILDREN IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1959 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1959 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH, OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess and subsequent postponements, at 9:30 a.m., in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne Morse presiding. Present: Senator Morse. Also present: Chester H. Smith, chief clerk; William P. Gulledge, chief counsel; Donald P. Feldman, assistant counsel; and Charles Lee, assistant chief clerk. Senator MORSE. The hearing will come to order. The chairman wishes to acknowledge at this point the receipt from Mr. Gerard M. Shea of a letter dated March 20, 1959, transmitting detailed social and financial information upon the 18 ADC children participating in the pilot school lunch program. The letter and attached data will be made a part of the appendix to the hearings, but will not be printed in the hearings. Senator MORSE. The staff has also provided me with material references on the relationship between nutrition and school work in accordance with my instructions of last week. These 28 citations, I believe, fully document the position that there is a close interrelationship between adequate performance in school, acceptable behavior, and nutrition. Without objection, at this point, in the record, the Library of Congress memorandums will be inserted. (The Library of Congress memorandums referred to follows:) THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE, Washington, D.C. NUTRITION AND SCHOOL WORK-SELECTED EXCERPTS Breckenridge, Marian E., and E. Lee Vincent. Child development; physical and psychologic growth during the school years. 3rd ed. Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Co., 1955, pp. 26, 123, 124–25. *** That physical condition, short of brain or nerve damage, has little to do with native intelligence is probably true. Promoting physical growth will probably not increase inherent intellectual capacity. In this sense they are not interrelated. However, the manner in which the native intelligence functions, being dependent upon attentiveness, concentration, self-confidence, 37538-59- -12 and aggressive attack upon problems, is unquestionably related to physical well-being. The behavior in school of children in Trier, Germany, during World War I is another example. After 3 years of undernutrition the children showed a decrease in physical and nervous energy and an increase in nervous disorders. The teachers reported that the children grew tired more easily than in the prewar days, were unable to concentrate, slower in compre hension, poorer in memory, inattentive, and restless. Discipline was hard to maintain. One teacher reported that she could keep the attention of her class for only 5 minutes in contrast to 30 minutes formerly. The standard of schoolwork was lowered. The number of children who failed to pass about doubled; the number of children doing superior work was not compatible with their mental capacity since the children apparently had not lost any of their mental capacity as measured by the usual mental tests. They lacked the staying qualities found in a well-nourished child. It has been shown that undernutrition or malnutrition can affect mental activities or the way an individual uses his mental abilities. However, whether nutrition affects the mental capacity of children is a moot question. Mental capacity seems to withstand deprivations which will affect mental activity. The children in Trier, Germany, in spite of their poor school performance had still the same mental capacity as measured by tests. In the Minnesota study,' according to both clinical judgment and quantiative tests the men's mental capacity did not change appreciably during either semistarvation or rehabilitation. The subjective estimates of loss of intellectual ability may be attributed to physical disability and emotional factors. Whether similar resistance exists at earlier ages when the nervous system is immature has yet to be demonstrated. Bryan, Mary deGarmo. Juvenile malnutrition needs headlines, too. Nation's schools, v. 57, June 1956: 94. Many an educator who is acquainted with the eating habits of today's teenagers has a plaguing suspicion that all is not well. He figures that, while juvenile delinquency captures the headlines, little noticed juvenile malnutrition really ought to share some of the notoriety and get its share of the public's attention. Knowing something about the food needs of growing boys and girls, the school head fears there is trouble ahead, if not already here, for the pretty sophomore who skips breakfast regularly in the interest of a Liz Taylor waistline and for her boy friend who makes a meal consistently of a couple of hot dogs and a fizzy drink. But the school lunch manager was handicapped by lack of scientific data to confirm his beliefs. Now comes material which substantiates the surmises of many school men and women in a most impressive way. It is provided in a study conducted by nutrition authorities of Pennsylvania and Texas. Since 1935, under direction of Pauline Beery Mack, the Ellen H. Richards Institute of Pennsylvania State University had been making mass studies in nutrition. To this great body of unpublished statistics was added the results of special research into the eating habits of 2,536 boys and girls in all kinds of homes, together with 573 children in orphanages. Finally, all of this material was edited and prepared for publication by Dr. Mack now of Texas State College for Women and Anna de Planter Bowes of the Pennsylvania State Department of Health. The bulletin was recently published by the Nelda Childers Stark Laboratory, Texas State College, with a grant from Lever Bros. Co. Mack, Pauline B. A nine-year study of the school lunch. Journal of home economics, v. 39, Feb. 1947: 73. Because the physical well-being which results from good nutrition is a requisite for realizing one's full capacities for accomplishment and happiness, the school lunch can constitute a great force for democracy by providing the means for every child to develop his potentialities, both physically and intellectually * 1 Keys, A. J. Brozek, A. Henschel, O. Mickelsen, and H. L. Taylor: The Biology of Human Starvation. Vols. I and II. Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press, Maxwell, Elsie. The broader value of the school lunch program. American school board journal, v. 122, March 1951: 24. *Federal bureaus, land grant and other colleges and universities, research foundations, and agencies interested in social welfare were making studies which showed the effect of quality feeding upon individuals. Old findings were verified and new approaches ventured which showed that well-balanced diets of high nutritive content yielded stronger, larger bodies; healthful functioning of the digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems; decreases of the incidence and severity of infectious diseases; reductions of illnesses which followed in the path of deficiency diseases; improved dental condition and lessened frequency of dental caries; a stabilizing effect on the nervous systems and emotional states of children. All these improved physical conditions were paralleled by reduced behavior problems, increased ability to give attention to classroom procedure, and better school attendance. Mitchell, Helen S. School lunch investments pay dividends. National parentteacher, v. 36, May 1942: 10. With 6 million youngsters getting a wholesome and nutritious lunch at school, what evidence have we that it has made a difference? Ask any teacher who has witnessed the change in her youngsters. True, you may not obtain scientific data that can be analyzed by statistical methods; teachers in the country schools where lunches have been introduced for the first time do not have access to research methods and facilities. But they see results even if they can't measure them. In the few cases in which the achievement has been measured the results speak for themselves. One country schoolteacher was loath to undertake even a simple hot lunch for her 20-odd pupils. There were no facilities, and she was doubtful of the necessity. The struggling PTA helped remodel the cloakroom to provide space for an oil stove, which someone contributed, and the children brought food from home to supplement that provided by the surplus commodities program. After some months this conservative and rather lethargic country schoolteacher had taken a new lease on life herself, and she reported all her pupils as doing better work, behaving better, and learning faster. She was convinced that the school lunch had made a difference. A school in the Southwest, attended by Indian and Mexican children, reports enthusiastically what the school lunch has done for them. The teacher says the playground is like a different place-more games, less fighting, and no more need of policing the playground at recess One city in Iowa is able to supply more concrete evidence: 20 schools kept accurate data on attendance for 1939. In 1940, 10 of the schools introduced the school lunch and 10 did not. Attendance improved by 13 percent over the previous year in the schools that had the lunch; in the other 10 there was a change of only 1 percent. Potgieter, Martha, and Viola Everitt. A study of children's eating habits. Journal of home economics, v. 42, May 1950: 366. A 1-week study involving 385 children in grades 4 through 8 in two (Connecticut) elementary schools showed all but one of the diets to be medium or poor in nutritional adequacy. The greatest degree of deficiency (in descending order) was found to be in: whole-grain or enriched cereal products, green and yellow vegetables, foods rich in vitamin C, and milk. The school records of the physical, scholastic, and emotional ratings of the children who were getting "poor" diets, as compared with the ratings of those in the "better diet" group, showed the latter to be slightly better in physical status, in dental status, in days absent because of illness, and in educational ratings, and definitely better in social adjustment. Salisbury, Morse. Food for freedom. School executive, v. 61, March 1942: 16-17. *** There is * * an extremely close relationship between nutrition and learning ability; the intelligence and emotional nature of a child are not fixed hereditary factors. Like the adult, the child lives in an external environment and surrounds an internal environment. The chemistry of the bodily fluids which bathe the tissues constantly, and which also perfuse the brain and determine its functional efficiency, is not rigidly fixed. Minor variations in the chemistry of these fluids, brought about by mineral, vitamin, or other nutritional deficiencies, can curtail the and aggressive attack upon problems, is unquestionably related to physical well-being. * The behavior in school of children in Trier, Germany, during World War I is another example. After 3 years of undernutrition the children showed a decrease in physical and nervous energy and an increase in nervous disorders. The teachers reported that the children grew tired more easily than in the prewar days, were unable to concentrate, slower in comprehension, poorer in memory, inattentive, and restless. Discipline was hard to maintain. One teacher reported that she could keep the attention of her class for only 5 minutes in contrast to 30 minutes formerly. The standard of schoolwork was lowered. The number of children who failed to pass about doubled; the number of children doing superior work was not compatible with their mental capacity since the children apparently had not lost any of their mental capacity as measured by the usual mental tests. They lacked the staying qualities found in a well-nourished child. It has been shown that undernutrition or malnutrition can affect mental activities or the way an individual uses his mental abilities. However, whether nutrition affects the mental capacity of children is a moot question. Mental capacity seems to withstand deprivations which will affect mental activity. The children in Trier, Germany, in spite of their poor school performance had still the same mental capacity as measured by tests. In the Minnesota study,' according to both clinical judgment and quantiative tests the men's mental capacity did not change appreciably during either semistarvation or rehabilitation. The subjective estimates of loss of intellectual ability may be attributed to physical disability and emotional factors. Whether similar resistance exists at earlier ages when the nervous system is immature has yet to be demonstrated. Bryan, Mary deGarmo. Juvenile malnutrition needs headlines, too. Nation's schools, v. 57, June 1956: 94. Many an educator who is acquainted with the eating habits of today's teenagers has a plaguing suspicion that all is not well. He figures that, while juvenile delinquency captures the headlines, little noticed juvenile malnutrition really ought to share some of the notoriety and get its share of the public's attention. Knowing something about the food needs of growing boys and girls, the school head fears there is trouble ahead, if not already here, for the pretty sophomore who skips breakfast regularly in the interest of a Liz Taylor waistline and for her boy friend who makes a meal consistently of a couple of hot dogs and a fizzy drink. But the school lunch manager was handicapped by lack of scientific data to confirm his beliefs. Now comes material which substantiates the surmises of many school men and women in a most impressive way. It is provided in a study conducted by nutrition authorities of Pennsylvania and Texas. Since 1935, under direction of Pauline Beery Mack, the Ellen H. Richards Institute of Pennsylvania State University had been making mass studies in nutrition. To this great body of unpublished statistics was added the results of special research into the eating habits of 2,536 boys and girls in all kinds of homes, together with 573 children in orphanages. Finally, all of this material was edited and prepared for publication by Dr. Mack now of Texas State College for Women and Anna de Planter Bowes of the Pennsylvania State Department of Health. The bulletin was recently published by the Nelda Childers Stark Laboratory, Texas State College, with a grant from Lever Bros. Co. Mack, Pauline B. A nine-year study of the school lunch. Journal of home economics, v. 39, Feb. 1947: 73. Because the physical well-being which results from good nutrition is a requisite for realizing one's full capacities for accomplishment and happiness, the school lunch can constitute a great force for democracy by providing the means for every child to develop his potentialities, both physically and intellectually * * 1 Keys, A. J. Brozek, A. Henschel, O. Mickelsen, and H. L. Taylor: The Biology of Human Starvation. Vols. I and II. Minneapolis, The University of Minnesota Press, |