Conceptual Framework

Outcome Early Childhood

Malnutrition

Immediate
Causes Deficient Disease
food intake

Underlying
Unhealthy environment, inadequate access to
Causes
food, and inadequate care for mothers and
children

Basic Socio-economic Family and

Area of
Causes residence status community
resources

The illustration above is an analytic tool developed to portray the causal

determinants of malnutrition. The roots of child malnutrition are categorized into three

levels; immediate, underlying and basic causes. One can also consider the reverse: the

conditions necessary at the same levels for achieving good nutrition. The conceptual
framework is thereby "turned around" to become a normative framework that can help

conceptualize what measures are necessary to ensure these conditions for good nutrition.

Adequate food intake and freedom of disease are the immediate conditions for good

nutrition. The underlying conditions are clustered under food security and adequate care,

which also constitutes the necessary components of nutrition security as defined: "a

situation in which food security is combined with a clean environment, appropriate care,

and feeding practices, to ensure a healthy life for all household members. A good area of

residence, upright socio-economic status, and safe family and well-confined community

resources are the basic conditions for fine nourishment.

Theoretical Framework

According to an article by Holydiver (2012), Food is the essence of life and its

first condition. Not surprisingly, all of the universal concepts of natural science included

the theory of nutrition as their essential and important part. There were two theories of

nutrition in the history of science. The first theory occurred in ancient times and the

second – the classical theory of a balanced diet – has been finally formed at the end of the

first half of the XX century.

The ancient diet theory is synonymous with the names of Aristotle and Galen.

Based on this theory, the power to all body structures is attributed to the blood that is

continually produced in the nutrient digestive system as a result of a complex process that

is unknown to nature, like fermentation. The liver filters the blood, and then all the

organs and tissues are supplied with it. Using this theory, numerous therapeutic diets
were built to provide the best qualities of the latter to facilitate the transformation of food

into the blood.

Associated with the common belief about the ideal food and optimally balanced

diet is the classical theory of nutrition. In its simplest form, this approach focuses on the

fact that the body should have a supply composed of such a molecular structure that

would compensate for the metabolism, function, and development that also relates to the

young organisms for their cost and loss.

The classical theory is also based on the following fundamental principles: inflow

of substances must exactly match their expenses, influx of nutrients provided by the

destruction of structures and absorption of food nutrients – nutrients needed for

metabolism and construction of structures of the body, utilization of food is carried out

by the body, food consists of several components of different physiological significance:

food, ballast, and toxic substances.

The two theories of nutrition are related to the researcher's study for with

conventional application of these theories, there would be an improvement of overall

health and reduced risk of malnutrition. This provides a possible solution to early

childhood malnutrition as well, as it would be a guide for children's health and nutrition.