Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
The word malnutrition is most often used to describe diets that are deficient in calories or essential nutrients. Chances are you’ve heard it used in that context—associated with starvation and extreme poverty.
But that is only one side of malnutrition. If we take the word literally (the prefix mal– meaning “poor” or “faulty”), it should also be applied to the dietary patterns of excess that produce obesity and diet-related diseases like heart disease and type II diabetes. These cases of malnutrition are on the rise—1.9 billion adults worldwide are now overweight or obese, more than four times as many as are undernourished (462 million); and although this growing gap is most pronounced in high-income countries, even the low- and middle-income countries that bear the greatest burden of undernourishment are experiencing rising rates of obesity and overweight.
For more on this topic, take a look at this article: nutritionstudies.org/how-much-does-malnutrition-really-cost
The word malnutrition is most often used to describe diets that are deficient in calories or essential nutrients. Chances are you’ve heard it used in that context—associated with starvation and extreme poverty.
But that is only one side of malnutrition. If we take the word literally (the prefix mal– meaning “poor” or “faulty”), it should also be applied to the dietary patterns of excess that produce obesity and diet-related diseases like heart disease and type II diabetes. These cases of malnutrition are on the rise—1.9 billion adults worldwide are now overweight or obese, more than four times as many as are undernourished (462 million); and although this growing gap is most pronounced in high-income countries, even the low- and middle-income countries that bear the greatest burden of undernourishment are experiencing rising rates of obesity and overweight.
For more on this topic, take a look at this article: nutritionstudies.org/how-much-does-malnutrition-really-cost
