The First 1,000 Days

March 21, 2016
This wrenching yet hopeful book puts a face on an international initiative, Scaling Up Nutrition, to solve the complex problem of child stunting, mortality, and malnutrition. The title refers to the critical period from conception to age two, when malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, disease, and parental misinformation pose a heightened risk to children. In Uganda, we meet Aron, whose mother’s first child died in infancy, but who is himself thriving with an early diet of biofortified orange sweet potatoes and high-iron beans. Venturing to Chicago, Thurow describes a teenage mom waking up to find that a nurse has fed her baby a bottle of formula, undermining her breast-feeding efforts. And in the story of baby Anshika, an Indian father learns to overcome a cultural preference for male children in order to help his wife and five daughters thrive. Thurow’s powerful and persuasive account concludes by stating that the Scaling Up Nutrition campaign is “not just about better nutrition or cleaner water or a new toilet or a bed net or breakthrough vaccines alone. It’s about how they all join up together.” Agent: Laurie Liss, Sterling Lord Literistic.

March 15, 2016
A presentation of research from around the world showing that good nutrition is critical in the first 1,000 days of a child's life. The period consisting of pregnancy and the first two years of a child's life is when the human brain develops the most. In 2008, world leaders acknowledged the importance of this period and initiated several projects, including Scaling Up Nutrition, to assist low-income families around the world. Thurow (The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change, 2012, etc.), a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, follows several women--in Uganda, India, Guatemala, and the United States--through pregnancy, childbirth, and the child's second birthday to see how they have responded to these efforts. Using interviews with the women and their families, the author gives an intimate look at the struggles many women face. They must fight against old customs that are leery of these new programs, contend with discrimination against women and female babies, and battle daily with a lack of sufficient money to purchase the food items they aren't able to grow themselves. Poverty, lack of training, and prejudice are at the heart of the world's malnutrition problems. Growing evidence shows that when these issues are addressed properly, children and mothers have far better survival rates. Thurow provides just enough grim facts on infant and mother mortality, the scarcity of food, sanitary conditions for birthing, and the general plight of impoverished families to garner sympathy without being melodramatic, and he also shows how women and children thrive under the right conditions. In today's global society, the children of the world need a voice. Thurow has spoken and made the issue clear: children everywhere need better food and water if they are going to grow into healthy adults. In-depth research and personal stories bring the issue of malnutrition in women and children to the forefront and provide evidence that, with proper support, children can flourish.

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April 15, 2016

Journalist Thurow (senior fellow, Chicago Council on Global Affairs; The Last Hunger Season) presents the experiences of four mothers and their children in Uganda, India, Guatemala, and Chicago to demonstrate the variety of issues that affect mothers' ability to ensure their children reach their full potential. According to the World Health Organization, one out of four children under the age of five is "stunted" owing to poor nutrition, unclean environments, poverty, lack of health-care access, and poor caregiver simulation during the first 1,000 days of life. Getting nutrients to mothers and young children became a top development goal and led to the creation of the 1,000 Days movement in 2010. Among its goals is to reduce the number of stunted children under age five by 40 percent by 2025. Thurow notes that this book is "not an exercise in scientific or academic rigor; rather, it is a journalistic narrative built of anecdotes and observations and research, as well as story telling by the women and their families." VERDICT Recommended for academic libraries focusing on social justice and public policy.--Karen Venturella Malnati, Union Cty. Coll. Libs, Cranford, NJ

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