In the developing world, are interventions to improve weight gain in infants storing up problems for the future by creating obese adults, with all that implies? This has been a central dilemma for some years, and it is clear that only long-term cohort studies will answer it. A recent study (Lancet 2013;382:525–34) goes some way to reassuring us. The Consortium for Health Orientated Research in Transitional Societies group collated results from cohort studies in five low or middle-income countries (Guatemala, Brazil, India, Philippines, South Africa), where sufficient early-life data had been collected, …