Malnutrition facts for kids
Malnutrition is not getting necessary nutrition to be healthy. It is considered a more scientific and official term than starvation which has negative associations. Malnutrition is not, however, simply not eating enough. Someone can be malnourished if they eat an unhealthy diet.
Malnutrition becomes a bigger problem during famine because most of the people do not get enough food, hence increasing the death rate. This can be cured by eating a proper balanced diet. Children whose daily diet contains less carbohydrate and protein do not grow well. They do not gain weight. Their hands and legs appear as skin and bones. They cry all the time with hunger. They are not active and have sunken eyes. Such children often fall sick. Lack of a particular vitamin is another kind of malnutrition which can cause a particular deficiency disease.
Related pages
Images for kids
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Child of a sharecropper with malnutrition and rickets, 1935
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Chart showing a trend between obesity and diabetes over the years.
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Chart showing a trend between obesity and diabetes over the years.
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Irrigation canals have opened dry desert areas of Egypt to agriculture.
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A malnourished Afghan child being treated by a medical team.
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Malnourished children in Niger, during the 2005 famine.
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Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange (1936).
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See also
In Spanish: Malnutrición para niños
