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Helen Swift Mitchell (September 21, 1895 - December 12, 1984) was an American biochemist and nutritionist. Born to Walter L. and Minnie (Swift) Mitchell in Bridgeport Connecticut, she studied at Mount Holyoke College then continued at Yale University. She was the research director at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and later taught course in nutrition at Battle Creek College and University of Massachusetts. During World War II, she was part of government committees that did research on nutrition. She did research on and published works in the dietary conditions of rats, and later co-authored the textbook Nutrition in Health and Disease.

Education
Helen Mitchell acquired a bachelors of arts degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1917. She continued her education at Yale University, earning a PhD in 1921. There she studied under Dr. Lafayette Mendel who continued to correspond with her later in her career. Mendel as a mentor was an anomaly in the early 20th Century, as he taught many female doctorate students and many of whom became leaders in their fields. Mitchell's thesis was on 'the choice of adequate and inadequate diets by rats and mice'.

Career
In 1921 she became the research director at the Battle Creek Sanitarium and taught in Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's School of Dietetics. From 1921-1935 Mitchell worked for the Battle Creek College as a professor in nutrition and physiology. During her time there, her research expertise was called upon by Dr. Wilfred Grenfell to conduct research on behalf of the Grenfell Mission in Newfoundland and Labrador. Along with Margery and Catherine Vaughn, they conducted a year long survey in 1929 of gardens and livestock to determine nutritional problems that coastal fishing towns were having. She found that many families were lacking minerals and vitamins from their overall calorie count.

She was research professor of nutrition at University of Massachusetts from 1935-1941 and later became the Head of the Department of Food and Nutrition and the Dean of the School of Home Economics (1947-1960).

War Years

In 1940, the National Research Council, wanting to predict nutritional needs for the military and civilians set up the Food and Nutrition Committee. Mitchell was a part of this committee from 1940-1945 and worked on figuring out the recommended daily or dietary allowance. She was one of three women, along with Dr. Lydia Roberts and Hazel Stiebeling, who overnight came up with an preliminary standard for wartime diets. During World War II, she was principal nutritionist for the Office of Defense, Health and Welfare Services (1941-1943) and chief nutritionist for the State Department Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation (1943-1944).

Paul V. McNutt from the Federal Emergency Management Administration supervised Mitchell's duty of elevate nutrition throughout the U.S. by compiling state resources.

Japan

In 1960 she also worked as an exchange professor for Hokkaido University in Japan and conducted research on nutrition of Japanese orphanage children after World War II. Working with Setsuko Santo, they determined in their first survey in 1960 that the children's stature was well below that of the national Hokkaido average based on nutritional disadvantages like lacking protein and vitamin A. In 1965 another survey of these same orphanages was conducted and found that the children's stature had increased due to increased nutritional budget however, they were still under the Hokkaido national average. Fad Diets

Helen Mitchell was publicly critical of fad diets, calling out the unscientific nature of them. She was particularly critical of the Dr. Hey diet which said that acidic and alkaline foods could not be digested together, and that these irrational claims discredited the field of nutrition. Mitchell thought that fad diets undermine the legitimate contributions to the field of nutrition by true scientist.

Publications

 * Nutrition in Health and Disease (with Leena Cooper, Edith Barber, 1928)
 * Vitamin C Content of Japan Green Tea, Journal of the American Dietetic Association (1929 Vol.5 pp.28-31 ref.3)
 * Nutrition Survey in Labrador and Northern Newfoundland, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol.6 pp.29-35 ref.2 (1930)
 * Cataract in Rats Fed on High Lactose Rations (with Warren M. Dodge, 1935), The Journal of Nutrition
 * The vitamin C status of college women as determined by urinary excretion (with O.A. Merreiam; E.L. Batchelder, Massachusetts State Coll., Journal of Home Economics, 1938 Vol.30 pp.645-650)
 * Facts, Fads and Frauds in Nutrition (with Gladys Mae Cook, 1937)
 * Food Fads, Facts, and Fancies (1939)
 * What Educators Should Know About the National Nutrition Program, Address given at the Third National Conference on Consumer Education, Columbia, Missouri (1941)
 * What the Consumer Should Know about Fortified Foods (1941) Industrial and Engineering Chemisty, Vol 33, No 6
 * Don't Be Fooled by Fads (1958)
 * A Study of Children in Hokkaido Orphanages Heights, Weights and Dietary Patterns (with Setsuko Santo, Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, 1963)
 * Recommended and Non-recommended Nutrition Books for Lay Readers (1964)
 * Nutrition in Nursing (with Henderika J. Rynbergen; Marjorie V. Dibble; Linnea Anderson, 1968)

Is it OK with you if I sign up to review your work? It is part of our assignments and I recall having some interest in her work. Gary M aka cafe.doppio