Institutionalized science and practice of nutrition of healthy children

In 2014 the Forderergesellschaft Kinderernahrung (Sponsor Association for Child Nutrition), the supporting society of the Forschungsinstitut fur Kinderernahrung (FKE, Research Institute of Child Nutrition) in Dortmund, celebrates its 50th anniversary. This article presents how the FKE developed during this time and describes the most important scientific contributions and practical recommendations for a healthy diet in infants and children. The publications and internal documents of the FKE demonstrate how the objectives, research into the nutrition of healthy children and the long-term effects on physical and mental development, were achieved. The FKE can look back on a chequered history. Nowadays the FKA has a high scientific reputation particularly due to the many results of the Dortmund nutritional and anthropometric longitudinally designed (DONALD) study. The FKE has continually made professional and timely statements on many practical questions concerning infant and child nutrition in Germany and developed food and nutrient based nutritional recommendations for infants and young families with children. There are still many unanswered questions concerning knowledge of physiology, nutrition and metabolism of the child and the long-term health effects of child nutrition. During the last 50 years the questions concerning nutrition in children and the methods to solve it have changed, the amount of unsolved questions, however, has remained undiminished.