For many decades, child health professionals have promoted rapid weight gain for young children in low and middle-income countries through the use of energy-dense complementary foods. However, recent results from cohorts in high-income countries suggest that rapid weight gain in childhood leads to increased chronic disease morbidity and mortality in adulthood. Given the nutrition transition affecting much of the world’s population, there is a true dilemma between promoting rapid weight gain to overcome undernutrition and limiting weight gain to prevent chronic diseases. This lecture will address the catch-up dilemma, with special emphasis on the pros and cons of rapid weight gain at different age ranges throughout childhood.
Cesar G. Victora is Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology at the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil, which he joined in 1977 after obtaining his MD from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (1976). In 1983, he received a PhD in Health Care Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has conducted extensive research in the fields of maternal and child health and nutrition, on equity issues and on the evaluation of health services, which led to 400 publications. He works closely with UNICEF and with the World Health Organization (WHO). His unit in Pelotas is a WHO Collaborating Centre in Maternal Health and Nutrition, being currently the highest-ranked Post-Graduate Program in Public Health in Brazil. In 2003, he was one of the coordinators of the Lancet/Bellagio Child Survival Series of publications, and in 2007 of the Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition. He is also a Visiting Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, member of the International Advisory Board at The Lancet and former International Associate Editor of the American Journal of Public Health. Prof Victora won the highest medical award in Brazil (the Conrado Wessel Prize) in 2005 and was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 2006. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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Cesar G. Victora, MD, PhD
