“Good Nutrition is a foundation of a child’s survival, health, and development.”
Growing up, my mother would always stress the importance of good nutrition, especially at times when my brother and I refused to eat fruits and vegetables. She often told us that whatever we eat during our youth will greatly impact our health as adults. Similarly, an infant’s consumption during the first 1000 days of their life plays a role in defining the trajectory of their growth and development in the years to come. Therefore, I certainly agree that good nutrition is an essential foundation of a child’s survival, health, and development.
The First 1000 Days of life span between the mother’s pregnancy and the child’s second birthday. It is said to be a “unique period of opportunity,” as nutrition and care received during this time serve as the foundation for optimum health and development across the lifespan, influencing the child’s survival and ability to grow, learn, and emerge from poverty.
On the contrary, with the First 1000 Days being a window for rapid growth and development, it may also become an opening for long-term health consequences resulting from nutritional abnormalities, as it is also a time of great vulnerability. Fetal malnutrition may lead to poor health outcomes such as intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR), being born small-for-gestational-age (SGA) or large-for-gestational-age (LGA), stunted growth, wasted weight, or underweight BMI. Later in the lifespan, the health effects of fetal malnutrition may contribute to impaired physical and/or cognitive development, poor school/work performance, obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, etc., which further emphasizes the significance of good nutrition early on in the lifespan.
Necessary actions to promote good nutrition should be taken. According to UNICEF, these include
- Educating families and supporting mothers in their efforts to exclusively breastfeed,
- Scaling up infant and young child feeding programs,
- Raising awareness on the importance of growth monitoring,
- Extending immunization coverage and uptake,
- Training communities on the importance of handwashing with soap as a form of illness prevention,
- Ensuring that qualified households obtain their child support grants and can afford food, and
- Using novel mobile health technology to deliver direct communication to parents and caregivers.
Good nutrition in the first 1000 days and throughout the lifespan is an essential tool to help ensure the long-term health, stability, and prosperity of society.
References
First 1000 days: The critical window to ensure that children survive and thrive [PDF]. (2017, May). UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/southafrica/media/551/file/ZAF-First-1000-days-brief-2017.pdf
Mayneris‑Perxachs, J., & Swann, J. R. (2018). Metabolic phenotyping of malnutrition during the first 1000 days of life. European Journal of Nutrition, 58(9556), 909–930. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-018-1679-0