But when children become adolescents, there's a huge blind spot in our knowledge of their nutritional status.
They say there is "no effective system in place" to detect children and adolescents at risk because of "the deleterious effect of indefinite detention" and "no child specific mental health services on the island (i.e. no paediatric psychologist or psychiatrist)".
She took one of the few options open to pregnant adolescents in South Sudan, where abortion is illegal and modern contraceptive methods are almost unheard of.
These blooming adolescents are exotic creatures: preening, chattering, smartphone clacking vessels of life.
It is strange to discover that adolescents need less sleep than younger children, since this is the zombie-phase, when they can only be roused with a hose, and parents across the land are reduced to doing pretend-DIY just to find new and outrageous ways to make a noise.
We must remain focused on difficult to place children: sibling groups, children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds and older children, particularly adolescents.
High-caffeine drinks, however, are not the same as coffee and should be avoided by adolescents and drunk sparingly by adults.
"As adolescents we used to empty our pockets and see what we could afford, and if we couldn't stretch to brandy or whisky we would get drunk on tequila.
Girls are widely expected to marry upon reaching puberty, meaning that adolescents face cultural pressure to have intercourse without protection, and to experience regular pregnancies.
Most worryingly, the commission raises the possibility that imprisoning adolescents may significantly increase the probability that they will commit violent and abusive sexual offences in future.
Or the report this month from Clinical Pediatrics showing that the rate of toy-related injuries among children and adolescents increased by 40% between 1990 and 2011?
