Malnutrition facts for kids

Malnourished children

Malnutrition happens when your body does not get the right nutrition it needs to stay healthy. It is a more scientific word than starvation. Malnutrition is not just about not eating enough food. You can also be malnourished if you eat an unhealthy diet that lacks important nutrients.

What is Malnutrition?

Malnutrition means your body is missing important vitamins, minerals, and energy. This can happen in two main ways:

• Undernutrition: This is when you don't get enough food or enough of the right kinds of food.
• Overnutrition: This is when you eat too much food, especially unhealthy food, which can lead to problems like obesity.

Both undernutrition and overnutrition are types of malnutrition because they stop your body from working its best.

How Undernutrition Affects Children

Undernutrition is a serious problem for children. When children do not get enough carbohydrates and protein in their daily diet, they cannot grow properly.

• They do not gain enough weight.
• Their arms and legs might look very thin, like "skin and bones."
• They often feel hungry and might cry a lot.
• They can be very tired and not active.
• Their eyes might look sunken.
• Children with undernutrition often get sick easily because their bodies are weak.

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies

Sometimes, malnutrition happens even if you eat enough food, but you are missing a specific vitamin or mineral. For example, not getting enough Vitamin C can cause a disease called scurvy. Not getting enough iron can lead to anemia, which makes you feel tired and weak.

Malnutrition and Famine

Malnutrition gets much worse during a famine. A famine is a time when there is not enough food for many people in a large area. During a famine, most people cannot get enough to eat. This causes many more deaths. Eating a proper, balanced diet is the best way to prevent and cure malnutrition.

Related pages

• Famine
• Hunger
• Global Hunger Index
• Starvation

Images for kids

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  Child of a sharecropper with malnutrition and rickets, 1935

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  Chart showing a trend between obesity and diabetes over the years.

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  Chart showing a trend between obesity and diabetes over the years.

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  Irrigation canals have opened dry desert areas of Egypt to agriculture.

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  A soup kitchen in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1931.

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  A malnourished Afghan child being treated by a medical team.

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  Malnourished children in Niger, during the 2005 famine.

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  Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange (1936).

See also

In Spanish: Malnutrición para niños