The health model has replaced the legacy formulation for child malnutrition rate or percent of population (MALNCHP) with a representation tied not just to calorie availability but also to access to safe water and sanitation. See documentation on that relationship.  This section documents the earlier and simpler formulation tied only to calories per capita.

In the legacy model IFs has estimated a relationship between calorie availability per capita (CLPC) and the percentage of children (MALNCHP) between the ages of 0-5 who are malnourished. In some countries, notably India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, initial values for this percentage are far from the value predicted by the analytical function representing this relationship. IFs assumes that outliers will converge towards the table function relationship over time (as controlled by the conversion parameter, polconv ).

IFs uses that relationship to update the percentage malnourished over time and to compute the actual number of malnourished children (MALNCHIL) in population cohorts 1 (infants) and 2 (0-4 years of age).

Relatively few models attempt to close the loop between food availability and mortality. (See, for example, Meadows, et. al., 1974 and Mesarovic and Pestel, 1974). IFs does so, while recognizing that little is actually known about the linkage. IFs treats calories as the basis for severe malnutrition- or starvation-related deaths. Regional calorie need (CLNEED) is computed by a sum across the age distribution (AGEDST), considering age specific calorie requirements (CLAGE) and an exogenous factor clnf ) with which the user can introduce regional variation in needs (or assumptions of regional differences in ability to respond to calorie shortages). 

Once the calorie-based starvation factor (CLSF) is computed, with admitted arbitrariness in specification, it is possible to compute actual starvation death levels (SDEATH) in the youngest two cohorts,