1.1 Nutrition and health
Good nutrition and access to an adequate diet and health are essential for child
growth and development, body maintenance and protection from both infectious
and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in adult life. Adequate nutrition and a
healthy productive population are increasingly recognized not only as resulting from
but also as an important prerequisite for poverty reduction and economic and social
development. Improvements in family diets and children’s nutritional status glob-
ally are thus imperative for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
related to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1) and increasing
child survival (MDG 4). Given evidence that children’s nutrition affects their health,
intelligence and educational performance and their economic status in adulthood,
reducing childhood malnutrition also influences achievement of the MDGs related to
universal primary education, gender equality and women’s empowerment, improve-
ments of maternal health and fighting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).