The authors examine the mutual reinforcement of adolescent health and education, the challenges of intersectoral working, and the joint investment needed to secure wellbeing during adolescence, into adult life, and for the next generation.
In this article, the authors argue that school health programmes have the potential to mitigate a growing epidemic of malnutrition in children and adolescents.
This is an invited memo prepared for the Spring 2022 Meeting of the Global Education Forum. It addresses the importance of the condition of children as a determinant of education outcomes, and specifically the role of school meals in addressing the well-being and learning of schoolchildren.
In the first few months of 2020, 1.5 billion children worldwide were excluded from schools by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Coverage of School Health Monitoring Systems in China: a Large National Cross-Sectional Survey” by Yan et al. provides an important demonstration of the value of monitoring national school health and nutrition programs.
Globally, there are 370 million children receiving school meals every day. Coverage is least in low-income countries, where the need is greatest and where program costs are viewed as high in comparison with the benefits to public health alone.
The creation of Human Capital is dependent upon good health and education throughout the first 8,000 days of life, but there is currently under-investment in health and nutrition after the first 1,000 days.