ENERGY REQUIREMENTS OF ADULTS

For the past decade or so the central importance of calories in the diet has been obscured by the phenomenal developments in other aspects of nutritional science. This tendency is documented by the leading textbooks. The space accorded to energy, calory estimation and requirements, including the problems of obesity and emaciation, is only 11 per cent of the text in such standard works as Sherman's¹ and McLester's² books and 9 per cent in the work by Hawley and Maurer-Mast.³ Such works expound general principles and some illustrations but do not critically examine the problems of actual practice. Moreover, while there is a spate of review articles and treatises on other aspects of nutrition, monographs on calories and energy requirements appear infrequently and usually begin with a semiapologetic or defensive statement: "There is a danger that energy requirements may be regarded as of minor importance... but... energy requirements