Nutritional status and food consumption of pregnant women in a development area of Israel

Abstract

The purpose of the survey was to gain information on food habits and conditions and status of nutrition of pregnant women in one of Israel's development areas. These areas, the most important of which is the southern part of the country, called the Negev, with its capital Be'er-Sheba, are underpopulated and both economically and agriculturally underdeveloped ; there new immigrants are employed in road building, afforestation and other public works projects. On arrival they live in camps in small tin and wooden huts. Later, they settle in villages or small towns which they erect with governmental help. This system strives for a solution of two difficult problems which face the State of Israel: economic development of the country and absorption of the masses of immigrants. Many of the newcomers, originating in underdeveloped Near and Middle Eastern countries, are unskilled or semi-skilled labourers and have lived under backward cultural and health conditions. It is clear that serious social and public-health problems arise in this situation.Since we were not able to carry out a country-wide survey on representative groups of all parts of the population of Israel, a nutritionally vulnerable group was chosen: immigrant pregnant women living in a development area. Signs of malnutrition were thought to be more widespread among this sample of the total population than in the rest, and if signs of a specific deficiency were found to be absent, it could safely be concluded that malnutrition is not a major public-health problem to the country. METHODSThe survey was made between February 1958 and March 1959. The sample studied comprised 164 pregnant women who had arrived in Israel after 1954 and were living in Be'er-Sheba and four other small towns of the Negev. One-third was in the second trimester of pregnancy and two-thirds in the third; 19% were under 21 years old,, 60% between 21 and 30, and 21 yo over 30 years; 21 yo were primigravidae, 50% were in their second to fifth pregnancy, 24% in their sixth to ninth, and 5 yo in their tenth to fifteenth. Thus, most of the women were relatively young and had had already many preganancies.

Composition and nutritive value of diets consumed by strict vegetarians

“…This diet contained 269 mg lysine, 75 mg methionine and 57 mg tryptophanlg nitrogen. Whereas lysine was found to be the critical amino acid in the proteins of mixed diets (Guggenheim, 1961)) it appears that in the vegetarian diets studied by us other amino acids, possibly methionine or tryptophan, limit the nutritional value of the proteins.…”

“…The protein efficiency ratio was only 1-27, considerably lower than those of two diets (1.76 and 1.93) consumed by middle-class Israelis (Guggenheim, unpublished). It is, however, interesting that the limiting amino acid in the vegetarian diet appeared not to be lysine, which limits the nutritive value of the proteins in both low-income and middle-class Israeli diets (Guggenheim, 1961). Whereas the latter contain 23 I-279 and 248-319 mg lysine/g nitrogen respectively, 375 mg lysine/g nitrogen were found in the average vegetarian diet.…”

“…The values presented above show that the composition of the vegetarian diet differed considerably from that of the diet of the general population. Within recent years the food habits and food composition of two groups in the Israeli population have been studied by one of us (Guggenheim & Dreyfuss, 1959;Guggenheim, Ilan, Vago & Mundel, 1960). In comparison with these groups the vegetarians used much less bread and other cereals and somewhat less sugar and sweets.…”

Factors in the Nutrition of Elderly People Living Alone or as Couples and Receiving Community Assistance*

“…The interview covered the food eaten on the two previous days. Five week‐days and a Sabbath were included, in view of a previous finding that the Sabbath menu differed from the week‐day diet (1). A fluid measuring cup, measuring spoons and a spring balance were used as aids.…”

Food Frequency Interview as an Epidemiological Tool

“…Dietary studies in Israel have demonstrated the same difficulty. In one, in which women were interviewed about their diet on three separate days, Guggenheim, et al, 4 found that although they obtained records from most of their 164 subjects, only 100 appeared to be reliable. In another, in which concurrent dietary records were kept for a fortnight, Bavly5 found that even though the subjects were selected on the basis of their "cooperation, understanding and truthfulness," 10 per cent of the records had to be rejected.…”