The First 1,000 Days
A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children -- And the World
-
- $229.00
-
- $229.00
Descripción editorial
An award-winning journalist and anti-hunger advocate explores the promise of-and challenges to-a transformative initiative to end early childhood malnutrition
“Your child can achieve great things.” A few years ago, pregnant women in four corners of the world heard those words and hoped they could be true; among them, Esther in rural Uganda, Jessica in a violence-scarred Chicago neighborhood, Shyamkali in a low-caste Indian village, and Maria Estella in Guatemala’s western highlands.
Greatness was an audacious thought, but the women had new cause to be hopeful: they were participating in an unprecedented international initiative focused on providing proper nutrition during the first 1,000 days of their children’s lives, beginning with their own pregnancies. The 1,000 Days movement, a response to recent, devastating food crises and new research on the economic and social costs of childhood hunger and stunting, has the power to transform the lives of mothers and children, and ultimately the world. In this inspiring and at times heartbreaking book, Roger Thurow takes us into the lives of families on the forefront of the movement with an intimate narrative that illuminates the science, economics, and politics of malnutrition, charting the exciting progress and formidable challenges of this global effort.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This wrenching yet hopeful book puts a face on an international initiative, Scaling Up Nutrition, to solve the complex problem of child stunting, mortality, and malnutrition. The title refers to the critical period from conception to age two, when malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, disease, and parental misinformation pose a heightened risk to children. In Uganda, we meet Aron, whose mother's first child died in infancy, but who is himself thriving with an early diet of biofortified orange sweet potatoes and high-iron beans. Venturing to Chicago, Thurow describes a teenage mom waking up to find that a nurse has fed her baby a bottle of formula, undermining her breast-feeding efforts. And in the story of baby Anshika, an Indian father learns to overcome a cultural preference for male children in order to help his wife and five daughters thrive. Thurow's powerful and persuasive account concludes by stating that the Scaling Up Nutrition campaign is "not just about better nutrition or cleaner water or a new toilet or a bed net or breakthrough vaccines alone. It's about how they all join up together."
