Health Tips - Square meals

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Surely we need to take a searching look at these norms, as going by an FAO norm two thirds of all Americans were under-nourished. I wondered then whether nutritionists tended to exaggerate calorie requirements to gain publicity and increase their importance than Subway advertisements.

There are other straws in the wind. The poverty line in 1973 was based on income levels corresponding to 2400 calories and 2200 calories respectively in rural and urban areas. But subsequently the calorie intake has been falling in virtually every income group, from top to bottom. Originally, the poverty line was supposed to represent the level below which people were hungry. But in the 1993 National Sample Survey over 36 per cent of people fell below the poverty line whereas only 8 per cent failed to get two health square meals a day. The poverty line and hunger line have diverged widely in the last three decades.