It's Always More Complicated

This is a grim read: apparently during WW2 conscientious objectors (I should like to know a bit more about this and if they were even allowed to be COs on general ethical rather than specific religious grounds) could opt for various forms of Civilian Public Service (presumably to release fighting men, or fill gaps caused by men going to war? - in UK 'Bevin Boys' were actually conscripts directed to coal-mining because it was so essential).

And some were offered an option to be part of medical research on hunger in a year-long starvation experiment.

I may point out that concurrently, an actual esteemed nutritionist had been interned in the Women's Camp at Changi following the Fall of Singapore and kept records. Cicely Williams did write a subsequent report but I'm not sure how much circulation it had.

Anyway, the main study from the Minnesota starvation experiment was not published until 1950 although it ended in 1945.

One thinks of the use that knowledge could have been when liberating concentration camps: working out how to feed the extremely starved was a massive issue - Janet Vaughan who was part of the team involved with experimental food supplements for Belsen wrote of 'doing science in Hell'.