Long Run Impact of Childhood Nutritional Status: Evidence from LMICs

Mukesh Kumar , Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India
Pratap Mohanty

We study the impact of childhood nutrition circumstances on later-age nutritional and cognitive outcomes in Low-and-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) using longitudinal data. We show that early childhood stunting is highly persistent as measured by the association between stunting status in early childhood and stunting status at age 15. Stunting in early childhood is associated with a lower height-for-age (HAZ) Z-score at age 15. Childhood stunting is also negatively associated with learning outcomes, including PPVT, math and reading scores.

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 Presented in Session 98. Flash session 2 Economics, Human Capital and Labour Markets