BASAL METABOLISM OF TWENTY-ONE CHINESE CHILDREN REARED OR BORN AND REARED IN THE UNITED STATES

During recent years much interest has been centered on the study of racial influence on basal metabolism. Several investigators have reported that the basal metabolism of oriental peoples was lower than that of the occidental races. Others have demonstrated that, irrespective of race, all those who resided in a tropical climate showed a reduced production of heat.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE  Table 1 gives a brief summary of a number of basal metabolism values for oriental subjects reported in the literature. Most of them have already been discussed in the recent reviews of Wang and Hawks¹ and of Du Bois.² With the exception of the reports of Takahira³ and that of Okado and his associates,⁴ all the values were lower than occidental standards. The former used a modification of the Du Bois height-weight formula for surface area' in the calculation of his results and compared the