Tag: Nutrition
Sustainable development, a foundation of the post-2015 global agenda, depends on healthy and productive citizens. The origins of adult health begin early in life, stemming from genetic–environmental interactions that include adequate nutrition and opportunities for responsive learning. Inequities associated with inadequate nutrition and early learning opportunities can undermine children’s health and development, thereby compromising their… Read more
In experimental animals, maternal diet during the periconceptional period influences the establishment of DNA methylation at metastable epialleles in the offspring, with permanent phenotypic consequences. Pronounced naturally occurring seasonal differences in the diet of rural Gambian women allowed us to test this in humans. We show that significant seasonal variations in methyl-donor nutrient intake of… Read more
Levels of child malnutrition in India have fallen only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and considerable expenditure on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To begin to unravel this puzzle, this article assesses the programme’s placement and its outcomes, using… Read more
ACTION global health advocacy partnership have launched their Nutrition Donor Scorecards, an accountability tool for tracking donor’s Nutrition for Growth Commitments. Until recently nutrition has been relegated to the sidelines of development planning only taking center stage at times of acute humanitarian crises. Yet with undernutrition behind 45% of all preventable child deaths worldwide this… Read more
On average, urban health levels are better than those in rural areas. However, averages can be misleading: once the data are disaggregated, it is clear that the urban poor face health risks often as high as and sometimes worse than those of rural residents, despite the proximity of modern health services (UNFPA, 2012). This report… Read more
Incorrect knowledge of the health production function may lead to inefficient household choices, and thereby to the production of suboptimal levels of health. This paper studies the effects of a randomized intervention in rural Malawi which, over a six-month period, provided mothers of young infants with information on child nutrition without supplying any monetary or… Read more
Sustainable development, a foundation of the post-2015 global agenda, depends on healthy and productive citizens. The origins of adult health begin early in life, stemming from genetic–environmental interactions that include adequate nutrition and opportunities for responsive learning. Inequities associated with inadequate nutrition and early learning opportunities can undermine children’s health and development, thereby compromising their… Read more
We conducted a systematic review of studies that examined the effect of interventions combining a child development component with a nutrition one; in some cases the nutrition interventions also included health-promotion components. Only papers with both child development and nutrition outcomes and rated as moderate-to-good quality were included. Eleven efficacy and two nonrandomized trials, and… Read more
Objective To assess the effectiveness of an integrated early child development intervention, combining stimulation and micronutrient supplementation and delivered on a large scale in Colombia, for children’s development, growth, and hemoglobin levels. Design Cluster randomized controlled trial, using a 2×2 factorial design, with municipalities assigned to one of four groups: psychosocial stimulation, micronutrient supplementation, combined intervention, or… Read more
Nutrition is the major intrauterine environmental factor that alters expression of the fetal genome and may have lifelong consequences. This phenomenon, termed “fetal programming,” has led to the recent theory of “fetal origins of adult disease.” Namely, alterations in fetal nutrition and endocrine status may result in developmental adaptations that permanently change the structure, physiology,… Read more
More than half of the world’s 7 billion people now live in urban areas. As the world’s population is becoming increasingly urbanised, new challenges are arising. The rural-urban gap in nutrition has narrowed in recent decades – essentially because the situation has worsened in urban areas. Ensuring adequate nutrition and food security for people living… Read more