ABSTRACT
In cooperation with a District Health Station of Beijing, 13 nurseries were selected for the study of the practice of diet planning. At the beginning, the health workers of the selected nurseries -were gathered together at the station to attend a short-term class. Lectures were given on the basic knowledge of child nutrition, the methods of dietary survey and diet planning, i.e. using the proper amount of the cheaper but more nutritive foods to make essentially balanced diets according to the RDA. The health workers of the nurseries meet and comunicate once a month at the health station to calculate the monthly food consumption and the average daily intake of the nutrients of the children in the past month and to make plan for the next month. The body weight of the children were measured every month and the height at three months intervals. The data collected in 12 months were summarized. The results indicated that the yearly average intake of most nutrients by the children increased and their collective growth level in weight and height increased correspondingly during the one year period of diet planning without any increase of the boarding expense of the children.