The study will evaluate the effects of improved nutrition during early childhood on physical and psychosocial status in adolescence. The main hypothesis to be tested is that effective nutrition programs for mothers and young children ultimately produce adolescents with a greater potential for leading healthy, productive lives. This hypothesis is rife with important policy implications: if valid, it will demonstrate that there are strong linkages among malnutrition, human capital formation and poverty which justify investments in health and nutrition as components of economic development strategies. A multi-disciplinary research team will return to four Guatemalan villages that participated in a longitudinal nutritional intervention program from 1969 to 1977 and to two control communities which did not participate in the study. The longitudinal study, carried out by the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) under NICHHD sponsorship, showed that a carefully controlled nutrition supplementation program reversed to a significant degree the effects of malnutrition on physical growth and mental development in young children. However, it is not yet known whether the immediate benefits observed in this and other nutrition intervention studies persist into adolescence and beyond, and further, whether early nutrition interventions have an effect on functions that can only be measured later in life. Hence, researchers from Stanford and Cornell Universities will join colleagues from INCAP in a follow up cross-sectional study designed to answer these long run questions. The study will last three years: preparation (9 months), data cllection and cleaning (12 months), and analysis and publication (15 months). The data to be collected from former participants and controls include measures of physical growth, physical performance, body composition, maturation, fertility, intellectual functioning, and performance in schools. Technical expertise and institutional facilities are adequate in all areas. Feasibility studies show that the overwhelming proportion of participants remain in the villages or can be located in nearby villages and cities. Statistical power analyses show that sample sizes, after adjustment for the estimated loss of coverage, are ample for testing the principal hypotheses.
