The immediate causes of malnutrition are disease and/or inadequate food intake, which in turn result from inadequate food, health or care at household or community levels.

The aim of preventive programmes is to ensure that the causes of malnutrition identified in the assessment are addressed. This includes ensuring that people have safe access to food of adequate quality and quantity, and have the means to prepare and consume it safely; ensuring that people's living environment, their access to, and the quality of health services (both preventive and curative) minimise their risk of disease; and ensuring that an environment exists in which care can be provided to nutritionally vulnerable members of the population. Care includes the provision within households and the community of time, attention and support to meet the physical, mental and social needs of household members. The protection of the social and care environment is addressed through the Food Aid and Food Security standards, while nutritional care and support for groups of the population that may be at increased risk are addressed in the Nutrition standards.

Programmes aiming to correct malnutrition may include special feeding programmes, medical treatment and/or supportive care for malnourished individuals. Feeding programmes should only be implemented when anthropometric surveys have been conducted or are planned. They should always be complemented by preventive measures.

The first two standards in this section deal with the nutritional issues relating to programmes that prevent malnutrition and should be used alongside the Food Aid and Food Security standards. The last three standards concern programmes that correct malnutrition.
Responses to prevent and correct malnutrition require the achievement of minimum standards both in this chapter and those in other chapters: health services, water supply and sanitation, and shelter. They also require the common standards detailed in chapter 1 to be achieved. In other words, in order for the nutrition of all groups to be protected and supported, in a manner that ensures their survival and upholds their dignity, it is not sufficient to achieve only the standards in this section of the handbook