Child Malnutrition

Child malnutrition results from a combination of inadequate intake of energy, protein, and micronutrients along with frequent infections. In children, malnutrition is synonymous with growth deficiency, as malnourished children have shorter stature and lower weight than expected for their age.

Addressing and reducing child malnutrition require equally intricate, multifaceted, and multisectoral responses.

UNICEF established the conceptual framework for the causes of malnutrition in 1990. These causes are multisectoral and include food, health, and caregiving practices. They are classified as immediate (individual level), underlying (household and family level), and basic (societal level), with factors at one level influencing the others.

The immediate causes of child malnutrition include inadequate food intake and infectious diseases. The interaction between these factors “creates a vicious cycle, as malnourished children, with reduced disease resistance, become more susceptible to infections, worsening malnutrition.”

“Malnutrition reduces the body’s ability to resist infection because it affects the functioning of key immune response mechanisms. This, in turn, leads to increasingly frequent, prolonged, and severe illnesses.”

The immediate causes have three sets of underlying causes:

1. Household Food Security:
   • Sustainable access to healthy food—containing energy, protein, and micronutrients—in sufficient quality and quantity to ensure proper nutrition for all family members.
2. Sanitation and Water Supply:
   • Essential for good health, access to preventive and quality healthcare services at reasonable costs.
   • An unhealthy environment can have more severe effects than specific disease outbreaks. Children living in such conditions may experience low-intensity but nearly constant immune system challenges that hinder their growth.
3. Care Practices:
   • Recently recognized and understood, inadequate care practices for women and children significantly impact nutrition.
   • Care encompasses how children are fed, nurtured, educated, and guided. From a nutritional perspective, care includes all measures, behaviors, and practices through which food availability and health resources translate into normal child growth and development.

Even well-directed efforts by some families to achieve good nutrition for all members are thwarted by political, legal, or cultural factors at the national or regional level. These factors may include:

• The extent to which laws and customs protect women’s rights.
• The political and economic system determining income and resource distribution.
• Ideologies and policies governing various social sectors.

UNICEF (2006) categorizes child malnutrition as a “silent emergency” because it generates harmful effects that manifest throughout a person’s life and are not immediately detectable. The first signs of these damages are low weight, followed by short stature. However, these are just the visible manifestations of deeper issues.