Nutritious food during childhood boosts earning power as adults

London, Feb 2 : Babies who are fed a nutritious diet have an ncreased earning power as adults, says a new research.

The study, conducted on Guatemalan babies, found that kids who ere well fed earned almost 50 percent more than those who were ot.

Experts said that the findings could affect how aid is managed in ountries in the developing world and could also have a bearing n social policy towards the poor in more developed nations, eports the Lancet.

The researchers said that food, schooling, the economic nvironment and the social services provided by government, all lay a role in achieving such a result.

However, in the long-term study, nutrition was the only variable hat changed.

During the 1970s, some of the babies in the study were given a ery nutritious food supplement, some a less nutritious one.

When the researchers returned three decades later to see how the abies - now men - were faring, they found that men who had had he very nutritious supplement up to the age of three were arning nearly half as much more per hour than the other illagers.

The girl babies who had become women did not have similar wage ifferentials, possibly because they had less choice about where hey worked.

The study is published in the journal The Lancet.

ANI