ArticlesEffect of a nutrition intervention during early childhood on economic productivity in Guatemalan adults
Introduction
The World Bank's 2006 report Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development: a Strategy for Large Scale Action argued for urgent and effective national programmes to prevent child malnutrition by targeting pregnancy and the first 2 years of life. This period of a child's life is thought to be the time when nutrition has the greatest effect on child health, growth, and development.1 One argument for increasing investment in such programmes is that they drive long-term economic growth by leading to healthier and more productive adults. Several reports support this “productivity” hypothesis. In a review of five cohort studies, including the Guatemalan one in this report, Victora and colleagues2 concluded there was evidence to link small size at birth and childhood stunting with short adult stature, reduced lean body mass, less schooling, diminished intellectual functioning, and reduced earnings.
About 200 million children in developing countries do not reach their developmental potential and are likely to do poorly in school;3 documented risk factors for loss of potential include stunting, iodine deficiency, iron-deficiency anaemia, and inadequate cognitive stimulation.4 Measures of human capital, such as adult stature and schooling, have been shown to be positively related to income and wealth.5, 6 Results from Guatemala show that improved nutrition in early childhood leads to better adult human capital including larger body size,7 improved physical work capacity,8 more schooling, and better cognitive skills.9, 10
We are unaware of any study that has assessed the direct effects of nutrition interventions in early childhood on incomes in adulthood. Thus, we aimed to address this gap by analysis of data from Guatemala to estimate the effect of exposure to nutritional supplements in early childhood on incomes more than 25 years later.
Section snippets
Study participants and procedures
Between 1969 and 1977, the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) undertook a study of the effect of improved protein intakes on physical and mental development of children from four villages of mixed Spanish-Amerindian ethnic origin in Guatemala.11 300 rural communities of appropriate size were screened to identify villages of appropriate compactness, ethnicity and language, diet, access to health-care facilities, demographic characteristics, nutritional status, and
Results
In table 1, we show selected individual and family characteristics and measures of income-generating capacity for men according to the exposure of nutritional supplementation at 0–24 months of age. Parents from fresco-supplemented villages had more grades of schooling than those from atole villages; some of these differences were significant, underscoring the importance of controlling for such factors. The mean annual earned income and wage rates of men exposed to either supplement during 0–24
Discussion
In our study, exposure to the atole supplement during 0–36 months of age, but not during 36–72 months, significantly increased hourly wage rates in men, though not in women. For atole supplementation during 0–24 months, the corresponding increase in the hourly wage rate was US$0·67 per h, representing an increase of 46% over average wages in the sample. However, atole supplementation in early childhood did not consistently affect the number of hours men worked, although these men tended to work
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