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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 25, 19 June 1950. p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The apologists for things-as-they-are tell us that hunger is one of those minor inconveniences that mankind has always had to suffer. The sciences of nutrition and food culture demonstrate that such a concept should be relegated to the scrapheap of history. One feels that, on this particular issue, the public is willing to cast its lot with scientific progress and against the status quo. But there is a big job to be done. Stark physical hunger still exists in the largeest portion of the world; and even here in “prosperous” United States actual want of food exists more than most of us realize. Just as dangerous and more common than actual want of food is “hidden hunger,” the evil of malnutrition.
The effect of malnutrition is difficult to measure in official mortality and morbidity tables. In the United States vital statistics list few deaths from starvation and undernourishment but the entries are there under the specific diseases which ravage the poorly fed. Certain anemias, much tuberculosis, some brain and nerve diseases, scurvy, rickets, pellagra, dental disorders, goiters, and certain types of heart diseases are attributed to “hidden hunger.” Yearly there are additions to this list as the science of nutrition extends the scope of its investigations.
Most families with marginal incomes consume a large proportion of foods of the bulky and starchy type. These lower-cost foods enable most American workers to meet easily calorific standards above the actual physical hunger level but do not supply the other nutritional needs. The remedy does not lie in dietary education but in increased income which will permit the purchase of the higher-priced milk, eggs, fruits and fresh vegetables.
The Federal Security Agency report of September 1948 states that about 70 million people in the United States have an income insufficient to maintain an “American standard of living.” This is reflected in the state of the nation’s health. Concerning the nutritional aspect of low incomes the same report says:
“Dietary-deficiency diseases in severe forms still exist particularly among children of low-income families. Many more children suffer from general malnutrition, which causes them to grow at less than normal rate and to have less than average resistance to infections.
“In some parts of the country, a recent survey showed, as many as 72 per cent of the pregnant women and 85 per cent of the children of early school age were suffering from secondary anemia.”
The relation of economic status and morbidity is clearly shown in the following fable taken from the federal government's National Health Survey:
Ratio of Annual per Capita Volume of Disability in the United States, 1935 |
||||
|
|
Income Status of Family |
|||
|
Diagnosis |
Relief |
Under |
$1,000– |
$5,000 |
|
Tuberculosis |
875 |
388 |
250 |
100 |
|
Orthopedic Impairments |
420 |
283 |
175 |
100 |
|
Rheumatism |
369 |
213 |
138 |
100 |
|
Digestive Diseases |
340 |
180 |
114 |
100 |
|
Nervous Diseases |
287 |
204 |
135 |
100 |
|
Degenerative Disease |
268 |
156 |
109 |
100 |
|
Respiratory Diseases |
189 |
121 |
<91 |
100 |
|
Infectious Diseases |
124 |
<93 |
<93 |
100 |
There is another important reason why the worker and his family are ill fed. The various food industries compete desperately for the market without any consideration of the overall nutritional need of the consumer. Sugar refineries promote the overconsumption of sugar in pastries, soft drinks, and candies. The flour-milling industry fosters a demand for white bread even though the flour used therein has been stripped of much of its nutrient. The list of similar crimes could be made almost endless.
To complete this picture of the inequitable and inadequate national diet, we must at least mention the government’s policy of food subsidy which prices food out of the reach of the consumer, and simultaneously burns wheat and erects mountains of potatoes and powdered eggs.
Were it not for the findings of nutritional science, the American worker might be content with his dietary lot. He might be satisfied with reminders that we are the best-fed nation on the planet and that each successive generation is better fed, larger, and healthier than its ancestors. But science sets standards in excess of those which are, at the moment, within our grasp, albeit not beyond our reach. Science gives validity to the politics of discontent.
To many workers, the dietary needs of the Hottentot, the starvation of Indians on Western reservations, the limited fare of the colored and poor white in the South, and the underweight child of the city slums are not sufficient challenges to action. But when the worker is informed that “hidden hunger” strikes his home and that his own children suffer dietary diseases, then he will demand an adequate wage, a rational government food policy, and worker-welfare measures such as child endowments.
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