The policy-makers, parents, health professionals and child advocates should view WHO’s newly-issued International Child Growth Standards for infants and children as a guideline to assess their physical growth, nutritional status and motor skills like sitting, standing and walking at an individual as well as at population level so that each child gets the best chance to develop in the formative years. Instead of genetics or ethnicity, researches have proved that children’s growth up to the age of five is influenced by the external environment, nutrition, feeding habits, and healthcare facilities. As the new WHO standards assume that children can gain body weight and height if they received an optimum start in life, and therefore, their nutritional and healthcare demands must be met.

Regrettably, in Nepal every 10 minutes a child dies of some malnutrition-related ailment and this adds up to an atrocious 50,000 deaths each year, according to Child Health Division. The new WHO norms can help detect malnutrition and obesity among children at an early stage. There is no gainsaying the fact that this tool, if implemented in the right earnest, can go a long way in reducing death and disease among infants and young children. Small initiatives can make a huge difference. Campaigns to propagate green vegetables and breast-feeding can serve as a potent tool. Nepal can achieve the Millennium Development Goal concerning child mortality if WHO guidelines were strictly adhered to. In the changed political context, the nation desperately needs a responsible and far-sighted leadership that can infuse life into all the development sectors, including healthcare.