Annales 82.1 - Optimising Growth in Preschool Children for Health and Development

Early childhood is a critical period when nutrition and environmental factors strongly influence lifelong brain development, physical health, and overall well-being. Both undernutrition and overnutrition can lead to growth faltering and increase the risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), with lasting effects on individual potential and broader societal outcomes. This issue of Annales Nestlé presents practical, up-to-date strategies for assessing growth and addressing both faltering and catch-up growth. It emphasizes early growth as a crucial phase for metabolic and developmental programming, and underscores the importance of timely, targeted interventions to support healthy child development and long-term outcomes.