Children's development is always of concern to parents and they want to improve it to help children take advantage of the golden opportunities in the early years of life. Monitoring children's height also plays an important role in assessing children's development and the World Health Organization has now established standards for these indicators.

Studies have shown that micronutrient supplementation has a negligible benefit on linear growth. Specifically, zinc and iron have a modest effect on linear growth in deficient children. Vitamin A, on the other hand, has no significant effect on linear growth.