1.1 What is malnutrition?
The term malnutrition generally refers both to undernutrition and overnutrition, but in
this guide we use the term to refer solely to a deficiency of nutrition. Many factors can
cause malnutrition, most of which relate to poor diet or severe and repeated infections,
particularly in underprivileged populations. Inadequate diet and disease, in turn, are
closely linked to the general standard of living, the environmental conditions, and whether
a population is able to meet its basic needs such as food, housing and health care.
Malnutrition is thus a health outcome as well as a risk factor for disease and exacerbated
malnutrition (Fig. 1.1), and it can increase the risk both of morbidity and mortality.
Although it is rarely the direct cause of death (except in extreme situations, such as
famine), child malnutrition was associated with 54% of child deaths (10.8 million children)
in developing countries in 2001 (Fig. 1.2; see also WHO, 2004). Malnutrition that is the
direct cause of death is referred to as “protein-energy malnutrition” in this guide.