malnutrition
Sign in to saveMalnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues and form.
AI overview
Malnutrition happens when your body doesn't get the right amount or balance of nutrients it needs, whether that's too little food, too much food, or the wrong mix of nutrients like protein and energy. This imbalance damages your body's tissues and overall health in harmful ways.
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Key facts
- Medical condition.name
- Malnutrition
- Medical condition.image
- A malnourished child in an MSF treatment tent in Dolo Ado.jpg
- Medical condition.caption
- Underfed child in Dolo Ado, Ethiopia, at an MSF treatment tent
- Medical condition.field
- Critical care medicine
- Medical condition.image_size
- 280px
- Medical condition.symptoms
- Problems with physical or mental development; poor energy levels; hair loss; swollen legs and abdomen
- Medical condition.causes
- Eating a diet with too few or too many nutrients; malabsorption
- Medical condition.risks
- Lack of breastfeeding; gastroenteritis; pneumonia; malaria; measles; poverty; homelessness
- Medical condition.prevention
- Improving agricultural practices; reducing poverty; improving sanitation; education
- Medical condition.treatment
- Improved nutrition; supplementation; ready-to-use therapeutic foods; treating the underlying cause
Article
60 sectionsContents
- Prevalence
- In children
- In adults
- Increase in 2020
- Type
- Undernutrition
- Micronutrient undernutrition
- Protein-energy malnutrition
- Overnutrition
- Classifying malnutrition
- Definition by Gomez and Galvan
- Definition by Waterlow
- Effects
- Signs
- Cognitive development
- Causes and risk factors
- Social and political
- Diseases and conditions
- Dietary practices
- Undernutrition
- Overnutrition
- Agricultural productivity
- Future threats
- Prevention
- Food security
- Economics
- Successful initiatives
- World population
- Food sovereignty
- Health facilities
- Breastfeeding
- Barriers to breastfeeding
- 21st century global initiatives
- Treatment
- Improving nutrition
- Identifying malnourishment
- Medical management
- Bangladeshi model
- Therapeutic foods
- Micronutrient supplementation
- Treating diarrhea
- Preventing dehydration
- Oral rehydration therapy
- Low blood sugar
- Hypothermia
- Epidemiology
- People affected
- [[Mortality (book)|Mortality]]
- History
- Special populations
- Children
- Women
- Physiology
- Pregnancy and breastfeeding
- Educating children
- Elderly
- See also
- References
- Sources
- External links
Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients which adversely affects the body's tissues and form.
Malnutrition is a category of diseases that includes undernutrition and overnutrition. Undernutrition is a lack of nutrients, which can result in stunted growth, wasting, and being underweight. A surplus of nutrients causes overnutrition, which can result in obesity or toxic levels of micronutrients. In some developing countries, overnutrition in the form of obesity is beginning to appear within the same communities as undernutrition.