Annales Nestlé

The world has gone through immense and rapid changes, and this has affected how we nourish and care for our children. While nutrition has improved overall, new challenges continue to arise, like the hike in childhood obesity, overlapping nutrition problems, and
climate change that threatens food security. These issues, and possible interventions, such as support for breastfeeding and a collaborative approach in different sectors are discussed more thoroughly in this edition of Annales.

The pandemic has made good nutrition more important, and also harder to achieve. Breastfeeding supports the infant immune system and has benefits for maternal mental health, but the pandemic has restricted support for new mothers and increased early termination of breastfeeding. Vaccination against COVID-19 has minimal impact on lactation or adverse impacts on infants, although an initial lack of clinical data has made many mothers hesitate to accept vaccination.

While the gut microbiota was once called “the forgotten organ”, it is no longer forgotten. On the contrary, it is a hot topic for research, as documented by the rapidly increasing number of scientific papers on this subject as well as coverage in the lay press,

Metabolic imbalances during pregnancy, such as GDM, might result in epigenetic changes which affect the offspring and might predispose to noncommunicable diseases later in life.

Vitamin D is a prohormone absorbed from food sources or supplements and also synthesized in the skin following exposure to ultraviolet light. Few foods naturally contain vitamin D.

The first few years of life represent one of the most dynamic and critical time periods in brain development. By the age of 2, brain volume reaches about 80% of the adult brain volume. In addition to the rapid increase in brain size, critical brain functions also emerge during the first years of life and continue to mature into adulthood. While the “young brain” is relatively small when compared to the body, it has a “big appetite” for food, learning and sleep.

Happiness is a feeling of well-being, joy, or contentment and to occur there has to be a balance between positive experiences and some which are less positive. The title of this volume reflects an umbrella that covers important issues that relate the human body and well-being to nutrition. Maternal factors, feeding practices and healthy food choices contribute to optimal physical and cognitive development and support child well-being.

The incidence of inflammatory GI disorders, such as eosinophil GI diseases, and allergic disorders, including food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES) & food protein-induced allergic proctitis (FPIAP); as well as complex functional disorders, such as non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is steadily increasing without any clear explanation.