The early environment in which we grow up has profound, long lasting, and often irreversible consequences for us throughout our lives. Stresses due to under nutrition in early childhood can mean that in adulthood individuals are smaller, more prone to disease, and have a shorter life expectancy than those with normal diets. Disease and poor living conditions in infancy and childhood also have profound implications in adulthood. Whilst environmental effects on human growth and development are well documented, the long-term consequences due to processes taking place at the early stages of growth and development have only in past years become a focus of intense study. In this volume, first published in 1996, leading researchers in nutrition, epidemiology, human biology, anthropology and physiology bring together a uniquely accessible source of information on this fascinating topic.

'… a wide-ranging volume … It is certainly a book with something for everyone and some contributions are developed at a level which should be accessible to any human biologist … This book can be recommended for its novelty and for its intrinsic interest to human biologists.' T. M. Pollard, Annals of Human Biology
'… a uniquely accessible source of information on a fascinating topic'. J. D. L. Hansen, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
'The book is very well designed, planned and edited … the volume offers very stimulating reading and is a valuable source of information for students and scholars in a range of related scientific disciplines, such as bioanthropology, auxology, epidemiology, nutrition, psychology and physiology.' Elena Godina, Journal of Biosocial Science