Nutrition through lifecycle

Children

Early childhood health, nutrition and education

Extensive research has been conducted on the educational effects of early childhood health and nutrition interventions. The breadth and depth of this research allows for a number of general conclusion to be drawn:

• Early childhood health and nutrition interventions have a consistently large impact on cognitive development
• Health and nutrition interventions have the largest impacts for the preschool age group, but are also effective in older children
• Early childhood health and nutrition interventions improve all aspects of school readiness, but greatest impacts are seen for motor development
• Early childhood health and nutrition interventions promote equity
• The best evidence of educational benefits is found for feeding programs, iron supplementation and malaria prevention
• Preschool education programs can be as effective as health and nutrition interventions in mitigating the educational impact of poor health and nutrition

This publication can be accessed here