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1290 An American Dilemma
M
Percentage of Negro and White Families in the Southeast With Diets Furnishing
Less Than Optimum Requirements of Specified Nutrients: 1936-1937*
Families by Weekly
Food Value per Food-
expenditure-unit
No. Of
Families
in Energy Pro- Phos-
Sample Value tein phorus
Cal-
cium Iron
Vita-
min
Thia-
min
Ascor-
bic
Acid
Ribo-
flavin
No. Pet. Pet. Pet. Pet. Pet. Pet. Pet. Pet. Pet.
$0.69 . $1.37
Village families, Negro 84 48 70 66 93 58 67 68 96 94
Farm families, Negro** 109 50 57 ^4 60 22 52 47 96 79
$1.38 -pjy;
City families, Negro* 54 16 41 45 33 21 14 44 67 91
Village families, Negro 53 17 26 ^5 15 ^4 63 43 73 79
Village families, White 69 22 49 30 73 39 68 61 69 74
Farm Families, Negro** 89 7 14 9 34 9 13 30 81 48
Farm families, White^ 133 16 4 2 23 4 44 17 79 38
Sowces: U. S. Department of Affriculture. Bureau of Home Economics. Consumer Purchases Study, Farm
Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels, Five Regions, Miscellaneous Publication No. 405 (X94i)»
pp. 52-61 and 103 : and Urban and Village Series, Family Food Consumption and Dietary Leeds, Five Regions,
Miscellaneous Publication No. 45^ (i94i)i PP* 209-220.
• The following requirements were used tor this tabulation: energy value 3,000 calories, protein 67 grams,
phosphorus 1.32 grams, calcium 0.68 gram, iron 12 millifpAms, vitamin A 6,000 International Units, thiamin
1 .5 milligrams, ascorbic add 75 milliOTams, and riboflavin x.8 milligrams. These requirements refer to the
daily needs of a moderately active fiill-grown man. Needs of women and younger persons may be different
from these—often lower but sometimes higher. This complication is taken care of by computing the con-
sumption per nutrition unit, whwby the needs of a full-grown man are used as a unit. The number of food
expenditure units are computed in a similar way (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication
No. 453. op. cit., pp. 251-252).
Uroups having less than 50 representatives in the sample are excluded from the table.
b Owners, tenants and croppers.
• Atlanta, Georgia; Mobile, Alabama; Columbia. South Carolina.
• Owners and tenants, except croppers.
To be sure, these observations are based on rather small samples. For this reason,
we cannot draw many detailed conclusions. It is extremely unlikely, however, that the
data would give us an exaggerated general impression regarding the frequency of dietary
deficiencies in the Negro population. Rather, it is not unlikely that they minimize the
occurrence of such deficiencies. For we must keep in mind that large groups at the very
bottom of the income ladder, such as relief families, broken families, agricultural wage
laborers, farmers and tenants who have moved within the year, are completely excluded
from the sample.
To be sure, statistical correlation does not prove anything about causation. Sick
people may live in slums because their sickness has kept them so poor that they cannot
afford adequate housing. Prostitutes may not get housing accommodation in decent
neighborhoods, and so are forced to live in slums. Poor slum families may get tuber-
culosis because their diet is bad. Nevertheless, any common sense evaluation will tell
ns that the causation, in part, goes from poor housing to bad moral, mental and physical
health.
*^The material in more than one-half of the Southern farm houses in 1934 was
unpainted wood. This was true about less than one-tenth of the farm houses in
Northern states east of the Mississippi River. About otte-third of the Southern farm
houses had foundations in poor condition. The corresponding proportions for other
areas varied between 7 and 28 per cent. There were about the same differences in
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