Starving Spain

There is little malnutrition among the children of Spain; they just don't get enough to eat. This cool distinction came last week from the slums of Madrid, where a Rockefeller Foundation project studies the nutrition of poor families.

Each family is examined for a week. On Monday morning, Dr. William D. Robinson and a group of Spanish nurses take inventory of the amount of food in the house, make a list of what is purchased; on Tuesday, and daily thereafter, the garbage (if any) is measured and studied. At the beginning and end of the week, after all food consumption has been checked, each member of the family is weighed and given a blood test. Their reward for cooperation: two pounds of Red Cross flour or a can of condensed milk.

Said a Rockefeller researcher last week: "Giving vitamins to the children of Spain would help hardly at all. What they need I is not better quality, but more quantity --something to stick to their ribs, more bread, more meat, more vegetables. From our study so far, we have found little evidence of pellagra, little lack of vitamins A and C." Though the Spaniards may not have time to appreciate the difference, "technically they die of undernourishment, not malnutrition."

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