Nutrition

Mission

To strengthen global understanding of the importance of good nutrition from ages 2 to 21—known as the “next 7,000 days”—and to co-develop a standardized set of indicators to track the nutritional needs of this age group.

Why?

The first 1,000 days (from conception to age two) are well established as a critical window for growth and development. But the next 7,000 days are equally vital. Nutrition during this time sustains early gains, supports catch-up growth, and lays the foundation for learning, long-term health, and economic potential. These years are essential for building human capital and enabling individuals and societies to thrive.

How?

Evidence curation

The Nutrition CoP collaborates with partners across sectors to generate evidence-based insights on the role of nutrition throughout the next 7,000 days.

Our flagship BOND-KIDS programme, developed in partnership with NICHD, USDA, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, lays the foundation for this work. Utilising the Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development (BOND) platform, BOND-KIDS established a common framework for monitoring the nutritional status of school-age children and adolescents by focusing on four key dimensions:

Biology and Function: Nutritional needs of school-age children and their effects on key biological systems.
Psychosocial Environment: How cognitive, behavioral, and social environments influence food choices, eating behaviors, and related outcomes.
Assessment: Evaluation of internal and external factors affecting children’s nutrition, and how to assess program impact effectively.
Translation and Implementation for practical application.

The outcomes of this programme will be published as a series of five papers in the Journal of Nutrition in 2026.

View all published articles from the Nutrition CoP in the ‘Publications’ section below.

Network-building and collaboration

We work with regional nutrition networks—including the African Nutrition Society (ANS), the Federation of African Nutrition Societies (FANUS), the Nutrition Society of India (INS), the UK Nutrition Society (UK NutSoc), along with one of its facilitated special interest groups, the Global Special Interest Group for School Health and Nutrition (GSIG_SHN) —to advocate for continued investment in nutrition through childhood and adolescence. Together with these networks we are supporting efforts to co-develop a common set of indicators to track nutrition for school-age children and adolescents – an initiaive led by the SMC Data & Monitoring Initiative and UNICEF School Age Children and Adolescents Nutrition Monitoring (SAANM) Working Group.