Nutrition Overview

Proper nutrition improves children’s health and the quality of their lives for years to come.

Access to proper nutrition helps fight off illness and disease and is vital to children’s cognitive development and learning. It helps ensure that children grow up to become productive members of society.

Two billion people in the developing world suffer due to poor nutrition.

Foods rich in vitamins and minerals are essential for a healthy diet. When diets do not contain sufficient amounts of vitamin A, folic acid, iodine, iron, and zinc, the consequences include significantly lower birth weight, permanent disability, a decrease in cognitive development, and increased susceptibility to other diseases.

Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable to a poor diet.

More than 3.5 million mothers and children under 5 years if age die unnecessarily each year in poor countries due to a diet lacking key nutrients, and millions more are permanently disabled by the physical and mental effects of a poor dietary intake in the first 2 years of life.

We’re working to improve diets of people in the developing world and ensure proper nutrition for young children and mothers.

We have two primary goals:

• Ensure that the diets of people in the developing world include essential vitamins and minerals.
• Ensure proper nutrition during pregnancy and for children through 24 months of age.

Our work in nutrition impacts many of the health issues we address at the foundation and is central to our success in helping all people lead healthy, productive lives.

Next: Our Approach

Poor nutrition is a large and complex issue, and no single action can solve it. To address it, we’re supporting the following strategies:

Reduce micronutrient deficiencies through the development and production of fortified foods

Micronutrient deficiencies can affect brain and cognitive development, reduce physical growth, and contribute to deaths among women and children. We’re supporting multiple efforts to develop and deliver micronutrient rich foods to poor people.

Promote breastfeeding and provide access to complementary foods to reduce undernutrition in children age two and under

Breastfeeding is an important and cost-effective way to reduce nutritional deficiencies and boost weight gain in young children. That’s why we’re supporting efforts to improve breastfeeding rates. We also support work to expand access to fortified foods that complement breastfeeding and encourage mothers to feed them to their children who are weaning.

Close critical gaps in the understanding and measurement of poor nutrition

There is still a great deal that is unknown about the role of nutrition in fighting disease and how best to measure a person’s nutritional status. We’re investing in the development of tools for assessing a person’s nutritional status and research to better understand the prevalence of poor nutrition and its impact on health and disease.

Build strong leadership and programs in nutrition

Nutrition programs in developing countries are often weak and neglected, lacking leadership and funding. We’re supporting efforts of national governments to build the human capacity to implement effective nutrition interventions and working to catalyze donors, the private sector, and governments to spend more in nutrition.

Develop crops with higher levels of nutrients

We’re supporting efforts to develop new varieties of staple crops with higher levels of key vitamins and minerals and investing in legumes, horticulture, and livestock value chains for improved dietary diversity .