—Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of children’s lives can have irreversible consequences. For millions of children, it means they are, forever, stunted.

—Stunting is defined as a below average height-for-age and is a indicator of chronic malnutrition.

—This is a tragedy for the 165 million children under the age of 5 afflicted by stunting in the world today.

—Additional anthropometric indicators such as wasting (low weight-for-height) capture acute malnutrition exposure and underweight (inadequate weight for age) serves as a composite indicator.

Globally in 2011, 52 million children under 5 years of age were moderately or severely wasted.