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In an attempt to detect those factors which, even in very poor families, allow good child nutrition, a comparison was made of data obtained from the families of well-nourished and of malnourished children standardized by socioeconomical level.Clear differences were found in some biological characteristics of the mother-child pair; the well-nourished children were more frequently males, they were older, their mothers had a better diet, and weaning was more gradual and involved a greater number of foods.There were also differences in family attitudes, showing that the families of the well-nourished had less prejudices and a higher degree of modernization with respect to concepts and beliefs about food.

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