What does malnutrition mean?
Malnutrition is the condition that results when a person receives too few nutrients, lacks certain essential nutrients, or consumes nutrients in proportions that are unhealthy. It is commonly associated with inadequate food, poverty, disease, or poor absorption, but it can also occur in populations with access to food that is nutritionally unbalanced. The term is especially important in medicine and public health because malnutrition can impair growth, weaken immunity, and affect development and survival. In everyday discussion, malnutrition usually refers to undernutrition and is often treated as a severe problem; in clinical contexts, it may also describe excessive or otherwise imbalanced nutrition. Understanding the word means looking beyond the amount of food alone to whether the diet supplies the nutrients the body needs and whether the body can use them effectively.
nounMalnutrition is a condition in which a person does not receive enough of the essential nutrients required for healthy growth and functioning, or receives them in an inadequate or unbalanced proportion. It may result from insufficient food, poor absorption of nutrients, illness, or an unsuitable diet.
- A condition caused by insufficient or inadequate nutrition.
- A condition of nutritional imbalance, including excessive or improper intake of nutrients.
"The clinic provides nutritional support for children suffering from severe malnutrition."
"Long-term poverty can increase a child's risk of malnutrition."
"The report found that the population's high rates of malnutrition were associated with contaminated water and untreated disease."
Rare; the noun is normally used in the singular or as an uncountable mass noun.
"The report examines the malnutritions recorded among displaced children."
Malnutrition is not simply hunger: it can result from an unbalanced diet, illness, or the body's inability to absorb nutrients.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does malnutrition come from?
The word combines the prefix mal-, meaning bad or abnormal, with nutrition, from Latin nutritio, a feeding or nourishing. Its sense developed from the idea of bad or deficient nourishment. Related English words such as nutritious, nutrient, and nutritive come from the same Latin root, based on Latin nutrix, a nurse or one who nurtures.
Related word forms
How malnutrition is actually used
Malnutrition is a general, formal term used in medicine, public health, and international development. In everyday use it most often means inadequate nutrition; clinical usage may also include excess or unbalanced nutrition. The noun is usually treated as uncountable, although the plural form is occasionally used.
Easily confused with malnutrition
Malnutrition is a broader condition involving inadequate or unbalanced nutrition, whereas starvation usually refers to a severe and prolonged lack of food.
Undernutrition specifically means receiving too few nutrients, while malnutrition can also refer to nutritional imbalance or the body's inability to use nutrients properly.