Tooth decay, soaring rates of obesity, a rising mortality rate, poor mental health and at very real risk of disease or infection.

A description befitting society’s oldest members? Perhaps. But it actually depicts the UK’s under fives.

A report this month by the Academy for Medical Sciences lays bare the impact decades of austerity is having on our youngest generation.

Despite being blessed with young bones, good health and bags of energy – researchers say there has been an ‘appalling decline’ in the health of babies, toddlers and small children.

Concerned by a rising infant mortality rate – disproportionately affecting the poorest parts of the country – and falls in immunisation rates now paving way for the return of once-obliterated childhood diseases, it paints a bleak picture of health for youngsters living in a wealthy developed country.

The report’s co-chairman Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, from the University of Oxford, perhaps put it best when he said: “There are huge challenges for the NHS today, driven by the growing pressures on health and social care from an ageing population.

“Even more disconcerting is the evidence cited in our Academy of Medical Sciences report of an appalling decline in the health of our children, which makes for an even more bleak outlook for their future.”

As a nation we’ve been in danger of assuming our youngest citizens will serve as our most resilient.

And while the well-publicised crisis in health and social care is leaving millions of elderly people poorly cared for, at the other end of the scale the picture isn’t actually much better. Worse in fact.

From a shortage of midwives and health visitors to the decimation of Sure Start centre's closed in cynical cost-cutting measures – robbing Peter in an attempt to pay Paul is now robbing children of a good start.

Our infant survival rate is lagging behind comparable countries. Where there are real fears growing numbers of babies won’t reach their first or second birthday simply because of the conditions they were born into.

Children, dying from preventable and treatable causes in some instances, because of a lack of available cash. In 2024 no less.

We think people in their 80s and 90s are dangerously unsupported– where the cost to get it right, and do it right has almost become prohibitive.

But early years are so critical. Where mistakes are hard to make-up, lost ground difficult to recover and the damage done often irreversible. And so far we’re not making enough noise about that.