Nutrition

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is seeking to support development of new forms of dietary assessment technology, based on passive or active image capture, including field testing to validate the new technology against reference assessment methods.

The Opportunity

Roadblock:

Poor nutrition in the period from conception to 24 months after birth contributes to 35% of deaths of children < 5 years of age, mainly due to increased mortality from infectious disease (The Lancet’s Maternal and Child Undernutrition Series, 2008). For children who survive, the effects of early undernutrition are long-lasting and largely irreversible and include a substantially higher risk of cognitive impairment and adult-onset chronic disease.

Roadblock:

Poor nutrition in the period from conception to 24 months after birth contributes to 35% of deaths of children < 5 years of age, mainly due to increased mortality from infectious disease (The Lancet’s Maternal and Child Undernutrition Series, 2008). For children who survive, the effects of early undernutrition are long-lasting and largely irreversible and include a substantially higher risk of cognitive impairment and adult-onset chronic disease.