What is Malnutrition?

Malnutrition Defined

Malnutrition is when the body lacks sufficient vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients needed to thrive.

A multilayered issue, malnutrition manifests in many forms. It can refer to an excessive, insufficient, or imbalanced intake of nutrients. UNICEF categorizes the forms malnutrition can take as:

• Undernourished (e.g., experiencing wasting, stunting, or micronutrient deficiencies) or
• being overweight.

Globally, according to the United Nations’ State of Food Insecurity in the World report, one out of 11 people (9.1% of the global population) are undernourished. This includes 45 million children under age five who suffer from wasting and over 148 million who are stunted.

Wasting

Wasting, or acute malnutrition, is when someone is too thin for their height. It can be a sudden change or one that occurs gradually but persistently. It can be treated, but moderate and severe cases carry an increased risk of death.

Stunting

Stunting, or chronic malnutrition, refers to children who are too short for their age. It can occur when children do not have access to diverse nutrients, drink dirty or contaminated water, or lack proper healthcare. Stunted growth in children can cause life-long physical and cognitive damage.

Micronutrient Deficiencies

Micronutrient deficiencies are when the body lacks a type of vitamin or mineral (e.g., iron, iodine, folate, vitamin A, and zinc deficiencies) needed for healthy growth and development.

Overweight

Someone’s overweight when they are too heavy for their height.  Some overweight people are at greater risk of diet-related, non-communicable diseases later in life.

Causes of Malnutrition

Malnutrition has many causes that directly influence whether a person has access to the necessary nutrients for an optimal diet. Children in low- and middle-income countries, where more than 90% of undernourished individuals live, are particularly at risk of suffering from malnutrition. Some of the most common causes of malnutrition in these countries include the quality of diet, a mother’s health, poverty, climate change, and conflict.

Inequity

Some people go hungry while some people thrive. This harsh reality isn’t always due to luck or chance. People in power oppress minority groups, directly determining who has a chance at survival. Marginalized communities, like women, the elderly, or the disabled, face barriers to getting jobs, earning money, and accessing nutritious food, healthcare, and hygiene services.
In 2024, 692 million people lived below the poverty line, or on less than $2.15 per day.

Gender Inequality

An unequal world is a hungry world. Globally, women and girls face higher levels of hunger than their male counterparts, often eating last and least. This is only exacerbated when young girls are forced into hurtful gender norms, enduring early marriage or motherhood. Their future is limited, as is their access to resources and healthy food.
Women and girls make up less than half of the global population, but 60% of those who are chronically hungry.

Disease

Unhealthy children are more susceptible to malnutrition, and vice versa. Bodies grow weary and immune systems weaken when illness and malnutrition are combined. The results can be deadly.

The combination of disease or illness and malnutrition weakens the metabolism, creating a vicious cycle of infection and undernourishment.

Conflict

Where there is conflict, there is hunger. In fact, conflict is the top driver of hunger in one-third of the world’s hungriest countries.

Violence and fighting leads to the destruction of key infrastructure, healthcare centers, markets, and crop fields. It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s even more dangerous when humanitarian actors are prevented from accessing war-torn communities.

Today, over 120 million people have been forcibly displaced by conflict worldwide — and children account for 40% of that number.

Climate Change

The climate crisis is one of malnutrition’s leading causes. As the world warms, climate shocks and natural disasters are threatening the lives of 3.6 billion people already. Droughts, floods, heavy rainfall and other calamities are killing livestock, destroying crops, damaging infrastructure and contaminating water sources, leading to an uptick in hunger and malnutrition around the world.

On the world’s current path, it’s estimated that by 2040 climate change will cut crop yields in half. Around 525 million more people could face climate-induced hunger.

Lack of Clean Drinking Water and Poor Sanitation

Waterborne diseases are a dangerous risk factor in malnutrition. Every day, more than 1,000 children die from illnesses caused by poor hygiene and dirty water. When families follow proper hygiene protocol and stay hydrated and healthy, they are able to better ward off illness and withstand malnutrition.

Today, more than 2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water and 3.6 billion lack adequate sanitation, leaving them vulnerable to disease.

The causes of malnutrition are never isolated. They work in conjunction to limit access to proper nutrition. Malnutrition can be deadly, but luckily early intervention can lead to miraculous results. More than 90% of children who complete hunger treatment protocols survive acute malnutrition.

Areas Most Impacted by Malnutrition

In the next decade, malnutrition rates are expected to climb. It is pervasive in places where families face insurmountable food insecurity. As many as 733 million people globally go to bed hungry each night, and a child dies from hunger-related causes every 15 seconds.

Malnutrition can have a devastating impact on individuals, communities, and entire economic systems. That said, not all areas of the world are affected by malnutrition in the same way.
Malnutrition is far too common in countries around the world and threatens the world’s most vulnerable people, destroying livelihoods and wiping out entire communities.  582 million people will likely be undernourished by 2030, and more than half of them will be in Africa.  This is 130 million more people than if the COVID-19 pandemic had never happened. Most undernourished individuals live in low- and middle-income countries, where many lack access to enough food, water, sanitation, shelter, and other resources.
Without sufficient treatment, community support, and food security, it’s nearly impossible to prevent malnutrition.

Malnutrition in Africa

Climate stressors, chronic inequity, and recent conflict means that malnutrition in Africa is rising. It has the largest percentage of the population facing hunger, with over 298 million people, or over 20% facing hunger. By 2030, more than half of the global population facing hunger will be in Africa.

In Southern Africa, one of the worst droughts in history has left 6.5 million people facing hunger. 21 million children are malnourished, and five countries have declared a national disaster: Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Malnutrition in Asia

Asia is home to the greatest number of people experiencing hunger. Nearly 385 million—or over half of the world’s hungry—lived in Asia.
Although hunger levels have remained stable in Asia over the last several years, families across the region are still facing severe food insecurity. In the Asia-Pacific region, climate change fuels natural disasters like tsunamis or cyclones.

Malnutrition in the Western Hemisphere

Many children in Canada and the United States are overweight. Poverty is a major contributing factor, with the most vulnerable populations unable to afford or access high-quality foods with necessary nutrients easily.

Elsewhere, Latin America has seen an uptick in migration. Families are fleeing danger and trekking hundreds of miles in search of safety. Throughout the entire region, hunger levels fell last year, but 41 million people still face hunger.

Here at Action Against Hunger, we’re on the ground providing healthcare in some of the world’s most hard-to-reach places. In many areas, we’re the only ones that can. From crowded refugee camps to rural villages, we’re ensuring that no malnourished child is overlooked or ignored.

What are the Effects of Malnutrition?

Nearly 2.5 million children die each year from malnutrition. But the warning signs are visible, and it’s a preventable and treatable condition.

Our health and nutrition teams look for:

• Sudden and unplanned weight loss.
• Loss of appetite and interest in food or fluids.
• Uncharacteristic tiredness or low energy levels.
• Joint pain, muscle aches, and other bodily ailments.
• Dizziness, poor coordination, and poor concentration.
• Difficulty keeping warm.
• Reduced immune function.

Side effects in children include:

• Faltering growth.
• Swelling in legs or stomach.
• Uncharacteristic changes in behavior, like unusual irritability or increased anxiety.
• Lower energy levels than other children.
• When left untreated, malnutrition can lead to long-term consequences, including impaired development, lifelong illness, and physical disabilities.
• Tragically, many malnourished people around the world—especially children—have no way to detect malnutrition. They have limited access to healthcare and often don’t recognize the symptoms or see them too late. In hard-to-reach places, early malnutrition detection can mean the difference between life and death.

What Is Being Done to Address Malnutrition?

Action Against Hunger works with partners all over the world to address the many challenges to ending malnutrition for good.

Here are just some of the ways Action Against Hunger works with our partners to tackle malnutrition:

• Identify causes of malnutrition within a community to create localized care programs
• Provide treatment and nutritional care for the most vulnerable within a community
• Help prevent malnutrition through increased food security, public health initiatives, education, access to clean water, and improved sanitation and hygiene levels
• Equip farmers with improved agricultural techniques and tools to increase crop yields, and 
  Conduct cutting-edge research to discover new and innovative ways to solve this problem.

Learn more about the ways Action Against Hunger is working to find innovative and scalable solutions to ending malnutrition.