Growth and Basal Metabolism

Abstract

Since improvement of the nutrition of children is being much stressed, it is indispensable that one should study the food requirement. There is much virgin soil for the study of the basal metabolism of children, especially of preschool children. Few investigations have been made on children of this age group because of the difficulty of securing subjects and because of the obstruction to accurate testing caused by the whimsical disposition of the children.In this paper I shall present a general report on the basal metabolism of preschool children and the influence thereon of sex and race. EXPERIMENTAL METHODThirty-one children, fifteen boys and sixteen girls, between the ages of 3 years and 10 months and 6 years and 6 months served as subjects. All of them were healthy, and their weight, height, chest girth and other physical characteristics were about the average for Japanese children of the respective ages (table 1).Before the experiments reported in this paper were conducted, some preparatory training was given to accustom the children to the test, lest they should entertain fear of the unfamiliar calorimeter. All the metabolism tests were made early in the morning, when the subjects were in a postabsorptive state, after a rest period of not less than thirty minutes. The children were kept quiet during the experimental period; while their general condition and activities were observed through the glass window in the respiration chamber, the attendant nurses ascertained that they were quiet by recording the respiratory rate and the pulse rate, which are instantly increased by muscular activity. A normal diet was given them in the institute in order to avoid the least influence on the metabolism by the previous diet. A diet rich in protein has a close relation with a higher basal metabolic level. The lowest figures, according to Krogh, are obtained after a diet rich in carbohydrate. All the tests were conducted in autumn (1932) with a view to excluding a seasonal influ¬ ence.Benedict's respiration apparatus with a cot chamber was employed for mea¬ suring the heat production. The accuracy of the apparatus was established by conducting alcohol checks, the results of which are shown in table 2.The results obtained were expressed in terms of total calories per hour, calories per square meter of body surface per hour, calories per kilogram of body weight per twenty-four hours and total calories per twenty-four hours (table 3).