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Trends and determinants of global child malnutrition: what can we learn from history?

In his inaugural lecture, Eric Schneider explores how child malnutrition, measured through child growth, has changed over the past 150 years around the world.
In his inaugural lecture, Eric Schneider explores how child malnutrition, measured through child growth, has changed over the past 150 years around the world.
Thursday 16 November 2023 | 1 hour 24 minutes 55 seconds
Download File | 68.08MB

Children with poor nutrition or who are exposed to high levels of chronic disease grow more slowly than healthy children. Thus, children’s growth is a sensitive metric of how population health has evolved over time.

Eric begins by showing how child growth has changed around the world since the nineteenth century and linking changes in child growth to child stunting, children who are too short for their age relative to healthy standards, the most common indicator used to measure malnutrition in LMICs today. Then he discusses the key determinants of poor child growth drawing on historical research and contemporary findings related to the ‘Indian Enigma’, the puzzling fact that Indian children are shorter than sub-Saharan African children today despite India’s lead in many indicators of economic development. Finally, he will consider what lessons historical analysis of child malnutrition has for tackling child stunting today.