EDITORIAL EDITORIAL

We've attained full age! This is the 3^rd issue of the eighteenth volume of Revista Brasileira de Crescimento e Desenvolvimento Humano. Exactly eighteen years of life of a successful idea.

Now it seems easy, but without the personal involvement of the numerous collaborators who worked at Centro de Estudos do Crescimento e Desenvolvimento do Ser Humano (Center for Studies of Human Growth and Development), and who, throughout these 18 years, strived to keep the Journal alive and, above all, to make it grow, today this editorial would not be possible. We would like to thank all of you.

In this trajectory, we must also remember the numerous authors and researchers who believed in the Journal, publishing their important scientific contributions in it.

The aim of a scientific journal is to become a relevant instrument for communication among professionals, mainly researchers from a given area of knowledge.

Obviously, our Journal, due to its central theme - human growth and development -, encompasses different areas of knowledge, and this has always given it an unquestionable multidisciplinary character. This may be one of its main objectives, which has been respected during the Journal's entire existence, and which will continue to be a firm commitment of this and of future administrations of our Center.

In fact, once more the Journal portrays this multi-, inter- and cross-disciplinarity, which in this issue surpasses the strict limits of the period of Growth and Development and extends to adult age. However, the interrelations between this period of life and what is called maturity are being described with increasing frequency. Barker's theory is an example that situates in the process of intrauterine Growth and Development determinants that are capable of affecting the health and life of youths and adults. Actually, this dependence between the parts of a whole is obvious, although it is often forgotten. One of the roles of Revista Brasileira de Crescimento e Desenvolvimento Humano is that of preserving, in the study of the parts, the whole.

For this reason, we are sure that we will continue to count on you, researchers, thinkers and professionals, who make this objective be a common aim. The scientific contributions that you send help us maintain our dedication and struggle alive, so as to preserve this open and coherent space for scientific communication. What's more, something that is also very important today, with your support we are able to maintain the Journal in the best indexing levels, together with other journals of high scientific qualification.

We would like to thank all the people who are sharing today with the journal this feeling of attaining maturity, keeping in mind that this is an ongoing process.

Enjoy your reading!

Claudio Leone

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