Cecile Hoover Edwards facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Cecile Hoover Edwards
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| Born |
Cecile Annette Hoover
October 26, 1926 |
| Died | September 17, 2005 (aged 78) |
| Education | B.A., nutritional chemistry, Tuskegee Institute M.A., organic chemistry, Tuskegee Institute PhD, nutrition, Iowa State University |
| Known for | Nutritional research for low-income and African American people |
| Spouse(s) | Dr. Gerald Alonzo Edwards |
| Children | 3 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nutrition |
| Institutions | North Carolina A&T State University Howard University |
| Thesis | "Utilization of Nitrogen by the Animal Organism" (1950) |
Cecile Hoover Edwards (born October 26, 1926 – died September 17, 2005) was an amazing American scientist. She studied food and health to help people who didn't have much. Dr. Edwards wanted to find cheap foods that were really good for you. She also worked as a leader at Howard University for many years.
She was honored by the National Council of Negro Women for her great work in science. The State of Illinois even declared April 5, 1984, as "Dr. Cecile Hoover Edwards Day" to celebrate her!
Contents
Early Life and Learning
Cecile Annette Hoover was born in East Saint Louis, Illinois. This was on October 26, 1926. Her dad, Ernest Hoover, ran an insurance company. Her mom, Annie Jordan, was a schoolteacher.
Cecile finished high school when she was only 15 years old. She then went to Tuskegee Institute. In 1946, she earned her first degree in nutritional chemistry. She kept studying at Tuskegee. She researched how animals get protein from food. She earned her master's degree in organic chemistry in 1947. She was not even 21 yet!
In 1950, she earned her PhD in nutrition. This was from Iowa State University. Her big research paper was about how animals use nitrogen.
Her Career in Science
Dr. Edwards started teaching at Tuskegee University. She was an assistant professor from 1950 to 1952. Then she became the head of the Foods and Nutrition Department. She led this department from 1952 to 1956. During this time, she also did research for the Carver Foundation.
In 1956, she moved to North Carolina A&T State University. She taught nutrition and did research there until 1971. From 1968 to 1971, she was the head of the Home Economics Department.
In 1971, she joined Howard University in Washington, D.C.. She was a professor of nutrition. She also worked in continuing economics. At Howard, she was a dean for many years. She led the School of Human Ecology for 13 years. She also led the School of Continuing Education. She even helped start a special PhD program in nutrition at Howard.
In 1978, she got a special grant from the Ford Foundation. This allowed her to be a nutrition expert at the University of Khartoum. She returned to Howard University. She continued to be the Dean of the School of Human Ecology until she retired in 1990.
While she was a dean, she also led a five-year project. This project looked at pregnancies in women with lower incomes. She studied how their health and money situations affected their pregnancies.
Important Research
Dr. Edwards spent much of her career studying nutrition. She focused on how to help people, especially pregnant African-American women.
Healthy Eating for Everyone
In 1953, Dr. Edwards published a study. It looked at how food supplements helped pregnant women who were anemic. Anemia means you don't have enough healthy red blood cells. The women in the study received different supplements. Some got extra minerals, some extra protein, and some extra vitamins.
The results showed that all the women improved. They had enough calories, protein, calcium, and vitamins. They also had healthier blood counts. Dr. Edwards found that good diets led to fewer problems during birth. Babies of mothers with good diets were also longer and heavier. She noted that the supplements used were cheap and easy to find. She suggested that all pregnant women, even those with less money, could eat well with these foods.
Dr. Edwards also wanted to find cheap foods with good amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. She looked at vegetables to find the best ones. In India, school children who ate special supplements grew taller and gained weight. Dr. Edwards did a similar study in Alabama. School children received low-cost supplements in their school lunches. Over six months, their height, weight, and school grades were checked.
Children who got the supplements showed big improvements. They had more important nutrients. Their teachers also said they were more alert and paid better attention.
Studying Proteins and Health
Dr. Edwards was very interested in an amino acid called methionine. She led an 18-year study on this topic. This study was for the National Institutes of Health. She also studied how people recover after surgery. After surgery, people can lose protein from their body. She studied how well rats absorbed methionine after surgery. She found that rats absorbed less methionine in the areas affected by surgery.
In the late 1980s, Dr. Edwards looked at old Southern food traditions. She found cheap, traditional dishes that were good sources of protein. She also created healthy eating plans. These plans helped reduce fat in African-American cooking.
She led a study that checked the quality of amino acids in common foods. These included flour, cream cheese, and lima beans. The goal was to help people combine foods for the best nutrition. For example, she found that bologna had more amino acids than frankfurters. Lima beans had more cysteine and valine than pork and beans. Her study helped people understand how to pair foods for the best health.
Dr. Edwards also studied how the body uses protein. She found that the body adjusts to the amount of protein it gets. If you eat enough protein, your body saves important amino acids like methionine. If some amino acids are missing, the body can make them or reuse them. She concluded that adult men need about 46 grams of protein each day. She also noted that diets based on wheat can provide enough protein. This is important for many parts of the world where wheat is a main food.
Dr. Edwards believed that social and environmental factors were very important for intelligence. She thought they were just as important as genes. She also worked to share knowledge about childcare and money management. She wanted to help people in communities with lower incomes.
How Society Affects Health
In 1995, Dr. Edwards wrote about a "population approach" to health. She believed doctors should consider a patient's social, economic, and cultural background. She looked closely at high blood pressure (hypertension) in Black Americans. She suggested that weight control, less salt, and exercise could help.
She also pointed out that social factors might cause higher blood pressure rates in Black Americans. For example, she noted that Black Americans were often poorer. They might also live farther from medical care. She also said that racism caused more stress. She believed these social factors and their link to high blood pressure needed more research.
Other Important Work
Dr. Edwards was a nutrition expert for many groups. She was part of government committees and panels. These included groups from the National Institutes of Health. She also worked with the United States Department of Agriculture. She was part of the 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health.
She wrote 160 research papers. She also helped write a book in 1991 called Human Ecology: Interaction of Man With His Environments. One of her articles, "Nutrition, Other Factors, and the Outcomes of Pregnancy," was very important. It led to a $4.6 million grant from the National Institute of Health. More research on this topic was done at Howard University.
Her Family Life
In 1952, she married Gerald Alonzo Edwards. He was a chemist who studied how chemicals work. They worked together on many research projects. He passed away three months before her. They had three children.
Cecile Hoover Edwards passed away on September 17, 2005. She is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.
