Widdowson, Elsie May

▪ 2001

      British nutritionist (b. Oct. 21, 1906, London, Eng.—d. June 14, 2000, Cambridge, Eng.), who, in collaboration with her longtime research partner, Robert A. McCance, guided the British government's World War II food rationing program. Widdowson and McCance documented the nutritional content of thousands of foods; advocated fortifying food (notably bread) with iron, vitamins, and calcium (the latter derived from chalk when other forms of calcium were unavailable); and did extensive research into the effects of dietary deprivation, including the surprising benefits of an extremely low-calorie, near-starvation diet. Their 1940 book, The Chemical Composition of Foods, became a classic in the field of nutrition and was revised several times. Widdowson, who received doctorates in chemistry at the Imperial College, London, and the Courtauld Institute of Biochemistry, London, also studied neonatal and children's nutritional needs and advised the British government on the nutritional needs of concentration camp survivors and German war orphans. She was a member of the research staff at the University of Cambridge (1938–72); served as president of the Nutrition Society (1977–80), the Neonatal Society (1978–81), and the British Nutrition Foundation (1986–96); and was elected (1976) a Fellow of the Royal Society. Widdowson was made a CBE in 1979 and a Companion of Honour in 1993. In 1999 she attended the dedication of the Elsie Widdowson Laboratory for human nutrition research at Cambridge.

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