Nutrition: Foundation for Health and Development

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The first 1000 days - from conception to age two – lay the foundation for a child's life. The right food and nutrients in this critical period are essential to good brain function, muscle and organ growth, and a strong immune system. Yet millions of children around the world are not adequately nourished in their early years. This has lifelong consequences for health, cognitive development and economic opportunities.

Families across the globe need equipping and enabling to meet their children's nutritional needs during the critical first 1000 days of life. This requires action at multiple levels: government, community and household.

Nutrition Basics

Where and why are so many children malnourished? What must be done to turn this tide? What are the ingredients for good nutrition in the first 1000 days of life? Find answers to these questions in Nutrition Basics.

Our Perspective

From World Vision's perspective, improving nutrition for mothers and children is a priority. It is one of our three Global Health & Nutrition Strategy goals. World Vision's nutrition focus is defined within the 7-11 Approach. 7-11 is a package of evidence-based, preventive health and nutrition interventions targeted to the first 1000 days of a child's life. The 7-11 Approach is complemented by Nutrition Project Models appropriate to the local project context.

Positive Deviance/Hearth is a model for sustainably rehabilitating malnourished children using community wisdom, while building family skills to apply local solutions to prevent future malnutrition.

Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition addresses acute malnutrition using a case-finding and triage approach. This allows most acutely malnourished children to be treated within their own homes.