Annual patterns of family and children's diet in three Guatemalan Indian communities

Abstract

Dietary surveys lasting 3 days were repeated yearly in 3 Indian towns over a period of 4 years, 1959 through 1962. During April, May and June of each year, a sample of twenty or thirty families and twenty or thirty individual children from 1 to 5 years of age in these families were investigated in each town. An outstanding feature of the findings was the constancy in food consumption from family to family and from child to child over the 4 successive years. Changes were expected, since 2 of the towns had been exposed to outside influences that have affected other living patterns of the people. Differences between the towns depended on the availability of types of food in each locality. The food pattern of the preschool children was the same as that of their families, but amounts of foods consumed by the individual children were less than the mean per head consumption in the family. When nutrient intakes were compared with INCAP rec-ommended allowances, it was seen that the family diets were adequate in most of the nutrients, but provided less than the recommended amounts of vitamin A and riboflavine, and in two towns also of vitamin C. The mean intakes per child, however, were below recommended allowances for all the nutrients except iron. The most severe dietary deficiencies appeared to be of vitamin A, riboflavine and Ca, although calories and protein were limited as well. The problem of food distribution within the families is discussed.