Examination of the average nutriment consump*tion of Americans reveals that age and gender play a far greater role than income class in determining nutritional intake. For example, the nutriment intakes of adult women in the upper middle class (with incomes above 350 percent of the poverty level) more closely resemble the intakes of poor women than they do those of upper-middle-class men, children, or teens.[19] The average nutriment consumption of upper-middle-income preschoolers, as a group, is virtually identical with that of poor preschoolers but not with the consumption of adults or older children in the upper middle class.



This same pattern holds for adult males, teens, and most other age and gender groups. In general, children aged 0–11 years have the highest average level of nutriment intakes relative to the recom*mended daily allowance (RDA), followed by adult and teen males. Adult and teen females have the lowest level of intakes. This pattern holds for all income classes.

Nutrition and Poor Children

Government surveys provide little evidence of widespread undernutrition among poor children; in fact, they show that the average nutriment con*sumption among the poor closely resembles that of the upper middle class. For example, children in families with incomes below the poverty level actu*ally consume more meat than do children in fami*lies with incomes at 350 percent of the poverty level or higher (roughly $72,000 for a family of four in today's dollars).

Table 4 shows the average intake of protein, vita*mins, and minerals as a percentage of the recom*mended daily allowance among poor and middle-class children at various age levels.[20] The intake of nutriments is very similar for poor and middle-class children and is generally well above the recom*mended daily level. For example, the consumption of protein (a relatively expensive nutriment) among poor children is, on average, between 150 percent and 267 percent of the RDA.

When shortfalls of specific vitamins and miner*als appear (for example, among teenage girls), they tend to be very similar for the poor and the middle class. While poor teenage girls, on average, tend to under-consume vitamin E, vitamin B-6, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, and zinc, a virtually identical under-consumption of these same nutri*ments appears among upper-middle-class girls.

Poor Children's Weight and Stature

On average, poor children are very well nour*ished, and there is no evidence of widespread signif*icant undernutrition. For example, two indicators of undernutrition among the young are "thinness" (low weight for height) and stuntedness (low height for age). These problems are rare to nonexistent among poor American children.

The generally good health of poor American chil*dren can be illustrated by international compari*sons. Table 5 provides data on children's size based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Data Base on Child Growth: Children are judged to be short or "stunted" if their height falls below the 2.3 percentile level of standard height-to-age tables.[21] Table 5 shows the percentage of children under age five in developing nations who are judged to be "stunted" by this standard.



In developing nations as a whole, some 43 percent of children are stunted. In Africa, more than a third of young children are affected; in Asia, nearly half.[22]By contrast, in the United States, some 2.6 percent of young children in poor households are stunted by a comparable standard—a rate only slightly above the expected standard for healthy, well-nourished chil*dren.[23]While concern for the well-being of poor American children is always prudent, the data overall underscore how large and well-nourished poor Amer*ican children are by global standards.

Throughout this century, improvements in nutri*tion and health have led to increases in the rate of growth and ultimate height and weight of American children. Poor children have clearly benefited from this trend. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actu*ally taller and heavier than boys of similar age in the general U.S. population in the late 1950s. Poor boys living today are one inch taller and some 10 pounds heavier than GIs of similar age during World War II, and nearly two inches taller and 20 pounds heavier than American doughboys back in World War I.[24]

Poverty and Obesity

The principal nutrition-related health problem among the poor, as with the general U.S. popula*tion, stems from the overconsumption, not under*consumption, of food. While overweight and obesity are prevalent problems throughout the U.S. population, they are found most frequently among poor adults. Poor adult men are slightly less likely than non-poor men to be overweight (30.4 percent compared to 31.9 percent); but, as Chart 3 shows, poor adult women are significantly more likely to be overweight than are non-poor women (47.3 percent compared to 32 percent).