6th Better Foods for Better Health – Childhood nutrition: building a healthy life

Good nutrition is essential for survival, physical growth, mental development, performance, productivity, health and well-being across the entire life-span: from the earliest stages of fetal development, at birth, and through infancy, childhood, adolescence and on into adulthood.

Breastfeeding and complementary feeding are a critical aspect of caring for infants and young children. Appropriate feeding practices stimulate bonding with the caregiver and psycho-social development. They lead to improved nutrition and physical growth, reduced susceptibility to common childhood illnesses and better resistance to cope with them. Improved health outcomes in young children have long-lasting health effects throughout the life-span, including increased performance and productivity, and reduced risk of certain non-communicable diseases.

The Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding include the production of technical information, the development of feeding recommendations, supporting research and designing training materials.

Protecting health and combatting disease can be achieved through improved nutrition, innovation and increased dialogue between the scientific community, regulatory, academy and industry stakeholders. In this respect, the 6th edition of the « Better Foods for Better Health” symposium, organized by Fondation Mérieux with the support of Mérieux NutriSciences, gathered global experts from the public and private sectors linked to agriculture and the food industry and involved in the promotion and improvement of infant and young child feeding.

The primary aim of the meeting was to present the context of infant and childhood nutrition, as well as the challenges and unmet needs in both low and middle income countries and industrialized countries with a particular focus on obesity and malnutrition, infections, allergy, and the emerging field linking nutrition and behaviour.
By fostering exchanges between various relevant stakeholders, this symposium provided a platform to discuss the need for new and harmonized tools to assess nutrition efficiency and safety in children.

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