Inadequate nourishment or caloric intake to sustain good health: The state of malnutrition among the animals at the private animal sanctuary was closed because it was so terrible to see and therefore it was no longer available for the public to experience.

Some causes of malnutrition can be a result of not having enough to eat, not eating the right things, or being unable to digest the food that one does eat.

2. Etymology: from Latin mali-, "bad, poor, poorly" + nutritionem from nutire, "a nourishing" + -tion, "act or process of".