Developmental origins of health and disease: Moving from biological concepts to interventions and policy

The rising incidence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), especially in young adults, presents great humanitarian and economic challenges to high-resource and, increasingly, to low-resource countries. No longer considered to be diseases of affluence, NCDs are exacerbated by urbanization and changes in social and lifestyle factors such as diet and family size. New research emphasizes the importance of early life factors in establishing the risk of NCDs through inadequate responses to later challenges, such as an obesogenic environment. A new focus on interventions to promote a good start to life in at-risk populations necessitates revision of public health policy, with implications for the health, education, and empowerment of women and children in particular.