Importance of Growth for
Health and Development

Growth is universally used by health care professionals and caregivers to
judge the well-being of babies and children, and this is based on an extensive
scientific literature linking aberrant growth of either extreme, failure to thrive
or rapid excessive growth, with adverse health and developmental outcomes.
On one hand, poor growth in early life is most commonly associated with poor
neurodevelopmental outcomes, while on the other hand rapid and excessive
growth has been associated with obesity and detrimental cardiovascular outcomes. While such statements do provide a simple summary, they assume
knowledge of optimal growth patterns and how these can be achieved. With
clear gaps in these areas, the challenge of this workshop was to explore in some
detail the associations of early growth patterns with later neurodevelopment,
obesity, cardiovascular outcomes and longevity in both industrialized and semiindustrialized societies.