Nutrition: Importance in First Years of Life

The first few years of life are as complex as they are exciting. A newborn infant is helpless and unable to provide any self-care beyond simple sucking and swallowing for nutrition. During their first five years, infants will learn the basics needed for survival and for thriving in the face of many challenges. They will learn to master basic motor skills needed for ambulation and for lifelong enjoyments such as sports and outdoor recreation. They will build a foundation of communication skills, learning to speak simple words and eventually complex sentences, and even the foundations of reading and writing. They will develop socially, at first only demonstrating reflex social smiling, but eventually learning to recognize and express emotions and feelings. At the core of all ...