Good nutrition and access to an adequate diet and health are essential for child growth and development, body maintenance and protection from both infectious and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in adult life. Adequate nutrition and a healthy productive population are increasingly recognized not only as resulting from but also as an important prerequisite for poverty reduction and economic and social development. Improvements in family diets and children’s nutritional status globally are thus imperative for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1) and increasing child survival (MDG 4). Given evidence that children’s nutrition affects their health, intelligence and educational performance and their economic status in adulthood, reducing childhood malnutrition also influences achievement of the MDGs related to universal primary education, gender equality and women’s empowerment, improvements of maternal health and fighting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).