This paper examines the relationship between early childhood nutrition and academic achievement using a longitudinal dataset from the Philippines. It finds that malnourished children perform worse in school, even after accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. The advantage of well-nourished children comes from entering school earlier and having more time to learn, as well as greater learning productivity per year of schooling. The study suggests that the relationship between nutrition and learning is not of overriding importance for nutrition policy or economic growth. The analysis uses an achievement production function to estimate the impact of nutrition on academic performance, controlling for other academic inputs. The results show that better early childhood nutrition improves academic achievement, but the effect is modest. The study also highlights the challenges of isolating the causal relationship between nutrition and learning due to potential confounding factors. Overall, the findings suggest that while nutrition does influence academic achievement, its impact is not large enough to be a primary focus for policy interventions. The paper concludes that economic growth and improved nutrition are mutually reinforcing, but the effect is limited in the short term.This paper examines the relationship between early childhood nutrition and academic achievement using a longitudinal dataset from the Philippines. It finds that malnourished children perform worse in school, even after accounting for unobserved heterogeneity. The advantage of well-nourished children comes from entering school earlier and having more time to learn, as well as greater learning productivity per year of schooling. The study suggests that the relationship between nutrition and learning is not of overriding importance for nutrition policy or economic growth. The analysis uses an achievement production function to estimate the impact of nutrition on academic performance, controlling for other academic inputs. The results show that better early childhood nutrition improves academic achievement, but the effect is modest. The study also highlights the challenges of isolating the causal relationship between nutrition and learning due to potential confounding factors. Overall, the findings suggest that while nutrition does influence academic achievement, its impact is not large enough to be a primary focus for policy interventions. The paper concludes that economic growth and improved nutrition are mutually reinforcing, but the effect is limited in the short term.