Nutrition in Malaysia Tilakavati Karuppaiah Department of Nutrition & Dietetics, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, Kuala Lumpur 50300, Malaysia Malaysia's population is drawn from multiethnic communities and therefore the food habits of her people reflect the diverse complexity of racial and religious practices. Additionally, the rapid socioeconomic progress and infrastructure development of the past 4 decades have influenced household income expenditure on foods as well as introduced new food types into traditional diets. Against this background, there has been a concomitant rise in non-communicable diseases, with cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus posing as threats to the Nation's health. A high prevalence of risk factor clustering for hypertension, abnormal glucose intolerance, hypercholesterolaemia and overweight has been observed for Malaysian adults and which is characteristic for a transitional society. At the macro-level, both prevention and treatment strategies stress a healthy lifestyle, good nutrition, weight reduction in the obese and increased physical activity. At the micro-level, hospital diets provide medical nutrition therapy for a large number of admissions with non-communicable diseases. Additionally, in-patient feeding in hospitals reflects the multi-racial diversity of Malaysia as represented by their menu content for solid and soft-type diets. Diet prescriptions for in-patients are handled by either dietitians in larger hospitals or the caterer in smaller hospitals and nursing homes. The advent of food-service systems in larger hospitals has also changed the management of hospital diets. This paper discusses the provision of nutritional services in Malaysian hospitals with particular relevance to the hospital menu and nutrition support in critical care patients. From "The 7th Congress of the PENSA Program & Abstract" Bali, Indonesia, August 24-26, 2001 Page : 35