BackPermanent damage
On a new report that a quarter of the world’s children could underperform in school because of chronic malnutrition
Premium(Priyanka Parashar/Mint)
James Heckman, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2000, has shown that children who start off with some disadvantage in their early school years fail to close the gap with other students even much later in life. Disadvantages that seem temporary become permanent.
Example: malnutrition. Heckman has shown that the cognitive disabilities of low-weight children in US schools at age 3 persisted even 15 years later. This problem is even more acute in a country such as India, with millions of children who are malnourished.
A new report by Save the Children released on Tuesday estimates that a quarter of the world’s children could underperform in school because of chronic malnutrition. And the Heckman results show that they will have to live with this problem for the rest of their lives.
Even more reason to argue that poor nutrition is not just a health issue. It can also perpetuate inequalities.
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