Improving Child Nutrition
The Achievable Imperative for Global Progress
Highlights
Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of children's lives can have irreversible consequences. For millions of children, it means they are, forever, stunted.
Smaller than their non-stunted peers, stunted children are more susceptible to sickness. In school, they often fall behind in class. They enter adulthood more likely to become overweight and more prone to non-communicable disease. And when they start work, they often earn less than their non-stunted co-workers.
It is difficult to think of a greater injustice than robbing a child, in the womb and in infancy, of the ability to fully develop his or her talents throughout life.
This is a tragedy for the 165 million children under the age of 5 afflicted by stunting in the world today. It is a violation of their rights. It is also a huge burden for nations whose future citizens will be neither as healthy nor as productive as they could have been.
