In a previous paper,1 we presented the results of basal metabolism tests on seventy overweight, but otherwise normal, children. These results seem, in the main, to agree with those found in overweight adults, and afford further proof that the basal metabolic rate in the condition of overweight, unless associated with other pathologic conditions, is usually normal, with a tendency toward high normal rate, owing to the stimulus afforded by a condition of plethora in the cells.
In this paper, we present our observations in a similar series of seventy underweight, but otherwise normal, children. We tried, as far as possible, to exclude those children in whom some definite pathologic condition was present which might affect the basal metabolic rate. We include thirty-five boys and thirty-five girls who were sent to our metabolism clinic because of "chronic malnutrition." Their ages ranged from 5 to 15 years. The deviation in weight