The Hierarchy of Needs Theory by Maslow is a theory which focuses on the five

categories of a person's need which are classified as physiological needs, safety needs,
social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization. These needs are in order from the
lower needs (physiological, safety and social needs) to higher needs (self-actualization
and esteem needs). Hagerty (1999) emphasized that food as one of the basic needs
which belongs to physiological needs is vital that the incapability to acquire such need
can cause a person's deterioration of self-nutrition. The lack of self-nutrition then can
cause health problems such as malnutrition. People, specifically children when lacking
of proper supply of foods and nutrients will suffer from possible hindrances in child
development as most development occurs during the childhood years.

The Micro-economic Theory of Household Nutrition on the other hand refers to

the household factors which may cause malnutrition. According to Chernichovsky
(1988), the household has the responsibility to make use of the state's programs as the
simplest unit of the study. With respect to this study, the parents must be aware that
food is a need and that it should be attained sustainably within the household. The lack
of such will then effectuate to health problems such as malnutrition.

Malnutrition is a health problem which can be attained due to the lack of

nutrient absorption from foods. This can result to improper body development wherein
mostly that are affected are the children. In this study, malnutrition as an independent
variable is distributed to the dependent variables: cognitive, physical, social and
behavioral development to determine its impact.

Cognitive development refers to the child's ability to think, understand and

reason out with respect to his or her age. Physical development refers to the observable
growth which includes height and weight. Social development is about how the child
interact and socialize in the environment. Behavioral development refers to how he or
she behaves at his or her age.

Age as a demographic variable is use to determine the difference of the impact

of malnutrition to child development according to age brackets.
 For the research process, the concept was first formulated. For the data
process, data are collected through the use of researcher-made questionnaire-checklist.
Codification was done and tallied manually. SPSS was used for data analysis as being
stated in the research methodology. The observation from the tabulation was
imterpreted to obtain the result.

The output of the study shows that there is indeed an impact of malnutrition to
child development. Physical development is the aspect that is greatly affected by
malnutrition in children aging 5 years and below. Cognitive development is low in
children aging from 6 to 12 years old. There is a need to continue and implement
effective health programs.