Children's Nutrition Action Plan - The Food Commission

Tim Lobstein
The Food Commission
To assess the current state of children’s nutrition, we need to look for indicators of impacts
on health that are attributable to diet. A classic method for evaluating children’s diets is to
look at the incidence of stunted growth. Recent government research shows that children
from lower income families are likely to be significantly shorter than children from higher
income families (see figures 1 and 2).
FIGURES 1 & 2: Height (cm) by family income, children aged 5-15 (boys and girls)
Is this effect caused by deficiencies in early nutrition, perhaps in early childhood or even
before birth? Or has the growth simply been delayed in lower income families? If so, why?
And why is income such a distinguishing feature?
The second classic measure is weight or underweight. Stunting and underweight are the two
classic signs of a grossly impoverished diet, short on essential nutrients and adequate energy.
But the occurrence of underweight children in the UK does not correlate with occurrences of
stunted growth. There is no income differential showing children to be underweight in poorer
households (figure 3).
FIGURE 3: Body Mass Index by family income, children aged 5-15
The Children’s Nutrition Action Plan, published by The Food Commission
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