From the right to food to the right to nutritional care

Abstract

Malnutrition is a public health problem in the world. Malnutrition associated with socioeconomic factors falls within the scope of the right to adequate food. The approach to this type of malnutrition is achieved through the two aspects of this right: the right to be protected against hunger and the right to adequate food, wich implies the need to constitute an economic, political and social environment that allows people to achieve food security by their own means. However, malnutrition associated with the disease cannot be defined within the scope of the right to food. In this context, a human right to nutritional care should be considered where the person at risk or in a state of malnutrition can receive nutritional care including nutritional therapy in an optimal and timely manner. This new emerging human right must be studied and defined from the human rights approach to be recognized before international and national human rights institutions.