[eptcyka]

>To be blunt, yes. People with poor nutrition, particularly in childhood, experience both physical and mental stunting, some of which is irreversible.

I don't disagree, but I was trying to substantiate this point once and I couldn't find any one good source that would confirm such a statement. Would you mind sharing a reference to some good source material approving the conjecture that poor nutrition in the childhood causes mental and physical stunting?

[retrac]

This study [1] deals specifically with brain imaging in the malnourished, but it starts off with a pretty good literature review in section 1 and 2 that may offer you some pointers. This [2] is a review of the literature on the question of childhood nutrition and brain development, see particularly the section "long-term consequences of undernutrition in early life":

> Many studies have compared school-age children who had suffered from an episode of severe acute malnutrition in the first few years of life to matched controls or siblings who had not. These studies generally showed that those who had suffered from early malnutrition had poorer IQ levels, cognitive function, and school achievement, as well as greater behavioral problems. [...]

> Chronic malnutrition, as measured by physical growth that is far below average for a child's age, is also associated with reduced cognitive and motor development. From the first year of life through school age, children who are short for their age (stunted) or underweight for their age score lower than their normal-sized peers (on average) in cognitive and motor tasks and in school achievement. Longitudinal studies that have followed children from infancy throughout childhood have also consistently shown that children who became stunted (height for age < −2 SD below norm values) before 2 years of age continued to show deficits in cognition and school achievement from the age of 5 years to adolescence.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192...

[2] https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/72/4/267/1...