Hunger and Malnutrition: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Hunger and malnutrition remain persistent global challenges, affecting hundreds of millions of people. The United Nations has warned that the world is “dangerously off course” in efforts to eliminate hunger and malnutrition (Global Network Against Food Crises, 2025). Despite decades of progress, in 2024, nearly 8.2% (673 million) of people globally experienced hunger (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2025). Hunger and malnutrition are closely intertwined. They are often two sides of the same coin: one quantitative (not enough food), and the other qualitative (imbalanced nutrients). Together, they undermine health, development, and the hope of a thriving future.

In exploring these challenges, we apply the THRIVE Framework to structure this analysis. It is guided by twelve key Foundational Focus Factors (FFFs). Here, three are most relevant: Complex Wicked Problems, Systems Thinking, and Finite Resources. By applying these factors, we examine hunger and malnutrition as multifaceted problems. This perspective considers interconnected influences and acknowledges the limits of our planet’s resources. Through THRIVE’s lens, we take a holistic view from the onset.

Defining Hunger and Malnutrition

Hunger is typically defined as an uncomfortable or painful physical sensation caused by insufficient food intake (Humanium, 2024). In practical terms, the United Nations uses “hunger” to mean chronic undernutrition, that is, consistently undereating calories required for an active, healthy life. Malnutrition, on the other hand, refers to an imbalance in a person’s nutrient intake or utilisation (WHO, n.d.). It includes undernutrition (not getting enough essential nutrients) as well as overnutrition (excess intake leading to overweight or obesity).

In many contexts, malnutrition implies undernutrition, for example, being underweight or lacking vital vitamins and minerals, often as a direct result of prolonged hunger and poor diets. Chronic hunger leads to weight loss, weakness, and conditions like wasting or stunting in children. Malnutrition of this sort weakens the immune system, impairs physical and cognitive development, and can be life-threatening, especially for young children. Importantly, a person can be malnourished without feeling hungry. Someone might fill their stomach with starchy staple foods but still lack protein or micronutrients. This is sometimes called “hidden hunger,” where the body is starved of essential vitamins and minerals despite sufficient calorie intake. For example, an estimated 340 million children worldwide suffer from such hidden hunger (micronutrient deficiencies) even if they consume basic calories (Humanium, 2024).

Conversely, malnutrition can also manifest as obesity when diets provide excess calories but poor nutrition. Over 40 million children under age five are overweight globally, reflecting how malnutrition can mean too many “empty” calories that have quantity, but not quality, and don’t provide enough nutrients.

These examples show that hunger and malnutrition, though not identical, are two sides of the same coin, both stemming from a lack of access to adequate, nutritious food.

How the Two Are Interconnected

Hunger and malnutrition reinforce each other in a vicious cycle. When people do not get enough to eat, their bodies lack the calories and nutrients to function properly, leading to acute malnutrition. In turn, malnutrition makes individuals (especially children) more vulnerable to illness and infection, which further reduces their ability to absorb nutrients even if food becomes available. A chronically hungry child will almost certainly be malnourished. A severely malnourished child cannot grow, learn, or resist disease as well as a healthy one (WHO, n.d.).

This impairs their school performance and future earning potential, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and hunger. Similarly, an adult suffering from malnutrition has less energy and strength to work. This can diminish their income and food security, trapping them in a cycle of continued hunger.

The role of Poverty

In communities facing extreme poverty, you often see hunger and malnutrition side by side. In fact, the United Nations notes that “poverty entails more than lack of income” and “its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition” among other deprivations (UN, n.d.).

These problems share the same underlying causes: inadequate access to food, poor health services, unsafe water, and economic hardship. It makes sense, then, that these issues often occur together. For instance, areas plagued by prolonged drought or conflict can experience food shortages (causing widespread hunger) and spikes in child malnutrition at the same time. Hunger is the immediate symptom, while malnutrition is the lasting damage being done to people’s bodies; one essentially leads to the other.

Without enough nutritious food, hunger persists, and bodies start breaking down their own tissues, leading to weight loss, stunted growth, and micronutrient deficiencies. Conversely, populations that suffer high levels of malnutrition (e.g. extensive stunting in children) typically have underlying food insecurity or seasonal hunger periods. In short, it is very hard to address one of these problems without addressing the other. Any solution to hunger must ensure not just calories but nutrients, and any fight against malnutrition requires making sure people have enough food overall. The two challenges are inseparable facets of the same fundamental problem.

Global Trends and Statistics

After decades of decline, global hunger began rising around 2015, driven by conflicts, climate events, and economic slowdowns, and it surged further during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last couple of years (2023-2025), there has been a slight improvement, but hunger and malnutrition levels remain alarmingly high. Below are some key global statistics and trends.

Prevalence of Hunger

As of 2024, an estimated 673 million people, about 8.3% of the world’s population, are suffering from hunger (chronic undernourishment). Additionally, 2.6 billion people aren’t eating a healthy diet because of affordability reasons (UNICEF, 2025).

Regional Disparities

Hunger is not evenly distributed. Below is a chart showcasing global disparities in undernourishment, which is often used interchangeably with hunger. The prevalence of undernourishment refers to the portion of the population, in any given region, who are not getting enough calories daily to live a normal, healthy life (Ritchie, 2022).

Food Insecurity

Beyond outright hunger, about 2.3 billion people worldwide, 28% of the global population, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2024, meaning they did not have regular access to safe, nutritious, sufficient food (UNICEF, 2025). This is 336 million more people facing food insecurity than in 2019, a deterioration largely owing to the pandemic and other crises. In other words, while not all of these people are classified as “hungry,” they are living on the edge of hunger, frequently uncertain of where their next meal will come from.

Diet Affordability

Healthy diets remain unaffordable for a large share of people. Approximately 2.6 billion people could not afford a healthy, nutrient-rich diet in 2024 (UNICEF, 2025). While the global number unable to afford healthy food has slightly fallen since 2019 (thus, the situation has improved), the situation has worsened in regions such as Africa, where high food price inflation and poverty have put diverse diets further out of reach. In low-income countries, staples such as grains or tubers may be accessible, but fruits, vegetables, and protein-rich foods are often prohibitively expensive, leading to malnutrition even when calorie needs are met.

Child Malnutrition

Progress in reducing child malnutrition has been mixed. Stunting (chronic undernutrition) among children under five declined from a prevalence of 37% in 2000 to about 23.2% in 2024. However, wasting (underweight in respect to height) and overweight remained relatively unchanged between 2012 and 2024 (UNICEF, 2025). This “double burden” of malnutrition, where obesity exists alongside undernutrition, is a growing concern, showing that poor quality diets impact all extremes.

Outlook for 2030

The world is currently not on track to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal SDG2: Zero Hunger by 2030 (UN, n.d.). Similarly, the global community will miss targets for reducing malnutrition in all its forms without urgent acceleration of efforts. These statistics underscore that simply continuing with “business as usual” will not end hunger, stronger action is needed.

Root Causes of Hunger, Malnutrition, and Food Insecurity

Hunger and malnutrition, and food insecurity do not have a single cause, they arise from a web of interrelated factors. These challenges exemplify Complex Wicked Problems, meaning they are difficult to solve with straightforward solutions and are entangled with other social, environmental, and economic issues, making them difficult to solve in a silo. Below are some of the key root causes contributing to hunger and malnutrition.

Poverty and inequality

Simply put, people in extreme poverty often lack the resources to obtain sufficient and nutritious food. Low income, unemployment, and economic inequality mean that millions cannot afford proper meals or essential health services. Malnutrition both results from and reinforces poverty; it saps productivity, impairs health, and slows economic growth, which can trap families in a cycle of poverty and undernutrition. This dynamic occurs at the country level as well as within households: economically disadvantaged nations typically have high rates of hunger; therefore, women and girls within individual households may eat less and/or last, worsening their health. Reducing poverty SDG1: No Poverty and reducing hunger SDG2: Zero Hunger are deeply interconnected goals (UN, n.d.).

Conflict and instability

War, civil unrest, and political instability are leading drivers of acute hunger crises. Conflicts disrupt food production and distribution, displace populations, and destroy livelihoods. Countries such as Yemen, South Sudan, Syria, and Somalia have seen widespread malnutrition as a direct consequence of conflict. Many of the world’s worst food crises occur in war-torn regions.

Armed conflict disrupts farming cycles by displacing farmers, destroying fields, and contaminating water supplies. It also cuts off trade routes, markets, and humanitarian supply chains, making even basic food staples unaffordable or inaccessible. Conflict forces people to abandon their homes and livelihoods, often pushing millions into camps or host communities where food systems are already fragile. Health services and sanitation infrastructure usually collapse at the same time, amplifying malnutrition, especially among children and pregnant women (Otorkpa, 2024).

Climate change and environment stress

Increasingly extreme weather and environmental degradation are undermining food security. Droughts, floods, heatwaves, and storms, many intensified by climate change, decimate crops and livestock, leading to food shortages and price spikes. Additionally, unsustainable farming practices, soil erosion, deforestation, and freshwater depletion degrade the natural resource base. These pressures on land and water, critical Finite Resources for food production, exacerbate malnutrition in the long term by reducing what the environment can provide.

Economic shocks and high food prices

Global and local economic crises can sharply increase hunger. Recessions and downturns reduce people’s purchasing power and can push marginal households into poverty. Inflation, especially spikes in food prices, detrimentally impacts poor households because they spend a large share of their income on food. When staple food prices surge beyond what people can afford, the result is less food on the table and cheaper, less nutritious diets.

Poor healthcare and sanitation

Health factors play a major role in malnutrition, especially for children. Inadequate healthcare, lack of clean water, and poor sanitation lead to diseases (such as diarrhoea, respiratory infections, and intestinal parasites) that make it harder for people, particularly infants and children, to absorb and utilise nutrients. Children who fall ill frequently or suffer from chronic infections are more likely to become malnourished even if they are getting enough calories, because illness increases nutrient needs and causes the body to lose nutrients. Likewise, a child weakened by malnutrition is more susceptible to infections, creating a vicious cycle.

Inadequate policies and governance

Often, persistent hunger and malnutrition reflect policy failures or governance challenges. In some cases, governments have not made food security a priority or have invested too little in rural development, agriculture, and nutrition programmes. Corruption and political instability can worsen food insecurity by diverting resources or preventing an effective response. In other cases, policies are well-intentioned but siloed: for instance, an agricultural policy might boost grain production but neglect nutrition (leading to cheap calories but vitamin deficiencies), or a health policy might treat malnutrition’s symptoms without improving food access.

Intersecting Factors create complexity

These root cause factors often intersect. For example, a climate shock in a poor, conflict-affected country can be devastating, as families have no savings or safety net to buffer the crisis. Or consider how high food prices (an economic issue) can spark social unrest and conflict, which then further disrupt food production, a vicious cycle. Given this tangle of causes, a holistic, Systems Thinking perspective is needed to understand how the pieces fit together. Hunger and malnutrition are outcomes of broader systemic issues: from how we grow food, to how wealth is distributed, to how societies care for their most vulnerable. Recognising this complexity is the first step toward crafting effective solutions that address multiple facets of the problem simultaneously.

Potential avenues towards decreasing hunger and malnutrition

Addressing hunger and malnutrition requires a multipronged approach, combining immediate relief with long-term capacity building and sound policies.

Addressing vulnerable populations

Expand social protection and food assistance

Ensuring that vulnerable populations can meet their basic food needs is a top priority. This includes emergency humanitarian food aid in conflict zones or disaster areas, as well as ongoing social protection programmes like cash transfers, nutrition assistance, and school feeding programmes. Such safety nets help prevent families from falling into extreme hunger during crises or economic downturns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments expanded cash transfers or food distribution to shield people from hunger. Strengthening and scaling up these measures globally is vital to save lives and improve nutrition for the poorest (Hangoma et al., 2024).

Boost sustainable agriculture and food supply

The world must produce enough nutritious food for a growing population in an environmentally sustainable way. Supporting smallholder farmers through access to financing, quality seeds, fertilizers, and training can increase yields and incomes. Agricultural development should emphasise climate-smart practices (like drought-resistant crop varieties, better water management, agroforestry, and soil conservation) to protect against climate shocks. Investment in rural infrastructure, roads, storage facilities, electricity, and irrigation is also crucial so that farmers can ensure their products reach the market and reduce post-harvest losses.

Improve nutrition and health interventions

Direct nutrition-focused actions are needed to tackle malnutrition, especially among vulnerable groups such as young children and mothers. This includes programmes to supplement and fortify foods with essential vitamins and minerals. Treating acute malnutrition is also critical: community-based management of malnutrition provides therapeutic foods (such as nutrient-dense pastes) to children who are wasted, often yielding quick recovery if reached in time.

Integrating basic healthcare with nutrition programmes amplifies impact. For instance, deworming children, immunising them against common diseases, and promoting exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life all contribute to better nutrition outcomes. Public health measures such as providing clean drinking water and sanitation help reduce the disease burden that exacerbates malnutrition (Mshida et al., 2018). Education is another pillar; teaching families about balanced diets, hygiene, and child feeding practices (e.g. the importance of breastfeeding and appropriate complementary foods) empowers communities to improve nutrition with the resources they have. In summary, investing in maternal and child health services and nutrition education is a proven strategy to break the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition (Kulwa et al., 2023).

Empower communities and women

Solutions work best when they involve the communities in need. Empowering local communities to participate in designing and implementing nutrition programmes leads to more culturally appropriate and thrivable outcomes. In particular, empowering women is one of the most powerful levers to improve nutrition. Women are often the primary caregivers and food providers; when women have greater education, decision-making power, and access to resources, child malnutrition rates tend to drop. Thus, initiatives that support girls’ education, women farmers, and women’s access to credit and land can have a big impact on food security. Community-driven solutions, such as cooperative gardens, local nutrition committees, or cooking classes led by community health workers, also harness local knowledge and support, making interventions more effective.

Sound policies are essential

Prioritise hunger and nutrition in national agendas

Governments should treat ending hunger and malnutrition as a fundamental goal in their development plans. This means coordinating across ministries, agriculture, health, education, finance, and social welfare, to implement comprehensive nutrition strategies. Policies must address food production, distribution, and consumption simultaneously. Policymakers should ask: how will this decision or budget affect food security and nutrition? and ensure all arms of government work in concert toward ending hunger.

Strengthen and scale social safety nets

As a matter of policy, countries should institutionalise social protection programmes that guarantee a minimum level of nutrition for all citizens. This can include food subsidy programmes, targeted cash transfer schemes, or the provision of fortified staple foods to vulnerable groups. Making these programmes a permanent part of governance (rather than a one-off charity) ensures that even during economic downturns, children and families do not fall through the cracks.

Ensure stable and fair food markets

Policymakers play a role in keeping food prices stable and markets efficient. Maintaining transparent, rules-based international trade in food is critical (especially for staple commodities like grains). Domestically, governments can manage strategic grain reserves or use buffer stocks to cushion price spikes. It’s also important to regulate markets to prevent excessive speculation or price gouging on food items during crises. Experts emphasise avoiding blunt interventions such as blanket price controls or export embargoes, and rather focusing on well-managed strategic reserves and open, well-functioning markets (UNICEF, 2025).

Good governance and accountability

Effective policies require strong institutions and accountability mechanisms. Governments should strengthen data systems to monitor hunger and malnutrition in real time (for example, regular food security assessments, nutrition surveillance of children, and price monitoring) (UNICEF, 2025). Some countries have enshrined the right to food in their constitutions or laws, which empowers citizens to hold the government accountable for taking action when people go hungry (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, n.d.). Adopting such rights-based approaches can galvanise political commitment and provide legal recourse in cases of neglect.

International cooperation is a necessity

International cooperation is the backdrop to all these policy measures. Issues like climate change, global trade, and conflict transcend national borders, so collective action is needed alongside country-level policies.

The world has recognised ending hunger as a global priority through efforts like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. SDG2: Zero Hunger commits all nations to eliminate hunger and malnutrition by 2030, and SDG1: No Poverty aims to eradicate extreme poverty: a closely related objective. Yet, as shown earlier, progress toward these goals is lagging. This calls for reinvigorated global solidarity and new ways of thinking.

Achieving THRIVE Goals: A Thrivable Future Beyond 2030

The persistence of hunger and malnutrition indicates that current efforts, while important, are not sufficient. The world is likely to miss the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals SDG1: No Poverty and SDG2: Zero Hunger by 2030 under the status quo. Projections show roughly half a billion people could still be undernourished in 2030 (UNICEF, 2025).

This is where the THRIVE Framework provides a valuable lens. Thrivability is about moving beyond mere survival or basic sustainability, towards a world where humans and nature thrive together. Applying the THRIVE perspective to hunger and malnutrition means:

Recognising complexity and interdependence

Hunger and malnutrition must be addressed as Complex Wicked Problems, not isolated issues. A single-policy silver bullet will not end hunger because it is entwined with poverty, education, health, climate, and governance. We must use Systems Thinking, understanding that interventions in one area (for example, agriculture or trade) will ripple through social, economic, and environmental systems.

Working within planetary limits

A thrivable approach insists that we solve hunger in a way that is sustainable for the planet. It would be counterproductive to expand food production by over-exploiting land, water, and forests today, only to undermine the resources that future generations will depend on. We must respect our Finite Resources and the environmental “ceiling” within which humanity can operate.

Elevating the social foundation

The THRIVE Framework also speaks of a social floor or foundation: the minimum conditions required for individuals and communities to thrive. Freedom from hunger is one of the most basic of these conditions. In a thrivable world, every person would have reliable access to sufficient, nutritious food as a fundamental human right.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Ultimately, achieving a world free of hunger and malnutrition is about fulfilling basic human rights and unlocking human potential. It is a profound moral imperative, but also a solvable problem if we muster the collective will. We have more than enough food in aggregate; we have the knowledge to produce and distribute it sustainably; and we have successful examples, past and present, that show it can be done. What’s needed is the resolve to scale up these successes and to innovate where old approaches have failed.

As the UN Secretary-General poignantly stated, “Hunger in the 21st century is indefensible… We cannot respond to empty stomachs with empty hands and turned backs.” (Global Report on Food Crises, 2025).

By embracing a thrivability mindset, tackling hunger and malnutrition with systemic, sustainable, and compassionate action, we can forge that path. Each of us, from policymakers to private citizens, has a role to play in making it a reality. The coin of hunger and malnutrition has another side: hope and nourishment for all. Let’s work to flip it.

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If you liked this article, here are some others you may enjoy:

• Reducing Malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa by Joshua Agaba
• Too Many Children are Dying from Wasting by Emily Larsen
• The Scientific Community: Abolishing Hunger by Chioma Ejelonu

Dr. Shalvaree Vaidya

Shalvaree Vaidya is an experienced scientific writer with a PhD in Health Economics and Policy, several years of experience in the pharmaceutical and life sciences strategy space, and a strong portfolio of scientific publications. She joined the THRIVE Project because of her belief in focusing on fostering long-term, systemic change through collaboration and innovation. Passionate about the intersection of sustainability and health, she is dedicated to ensuring that environmental and economic policies align with well-being and equitable access to healthcare resources.

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