Realising the history and importance of interrelations between food consumption and life#sustaining goes back more than 4000 years. The ancient Greeks engaged with this subject already in a broader context. Scientifically, they named it dietetics, which was a comprehensive health advisory system that included not only nutrition, but also breathing, food and drink, repletion and excretion, movement and relaxation, sleeping and wakefulness, and emotional influences, all necessary to life-sustaining. The lack of all these factors e.g. poor nutrition or lack of food consumption leads to ill conditions. In terms of prevention, following the right advice and rules helped maintain health and cure ill conditions. Galen's (129-216) work "De Marasmo" discussed how poor nutrition, or lack of it, or starvation caused a kind of debility, and he associated it with ageing or a feverish condition. Centuries later, Galen's follower Bernard de Gordon (1270-1330) outlined a specific disease that resembled our contemporary definition of malnutrition. The works of Galen and Bernard de Gordon were cited as the most notable works on the subject of malnutrition, but these works were thoroughly studied by scientists only in the latest modern age, using recent discoveries since the 1800s. Early definition and accurate recognition were endeavoured through many experiments e.g. the Minnesota Starvation Experiment (from November 1944 to December 1945). The WHO started a study about starvation in Africa by a diagnostic system based on Measuring Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC). The concept of malnutrition has substantially changed over the years. Marasmus was used for a long time but a new name malnutrition emerged in the 1970s, however, the exact definition of this condition was introduced only in 2017. The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) declared that malnutrition is a complex condition resulting from nutritional deficiency affected by several physiological factors.  Kulcsszavak: malnutríció, történet, egészségügy, cachexia