This is a presentation made by the authors at the Open Forum on Poverty held in August 2004. The presentation focuses on issues in order to bring out elements of the relationships between malnutrition, food security and poverty. The presentations by DrRatnayakeand DrJayatissacover three key questions: 1) why is malnutrition higher than the other human development indicators in Sri Lanka, 2) does the problem lie with the indicator itself and 3) does it indicate a real problem and reveal its true extent. DrRatnayake concludes that the reason malnutrition may be higher than other development indicators in Sri Lanka may be due to inadequate reference data including a complete lack of longitudinal data and the problems arising from the indicators not being adapted to local nutritional and environmental factors.