OBJECTIVES:  The present study is done to assess the characteristics of children who are diagnosed with malnutrition in different hospitals of Quetta, Pakistan. METHODS:  A cross-sectional study conducted in private and government hospitals of Quetta from February to August 2016. Children aged from 2 months to 12 years were included in the study. Data was collected using a special Performa made for this particular study WHO guideline was used to developed. The Performa include information regarding clinical appearances, current complain, measurements of weight, Height, Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) circumference of head (COH). As per WHO guideline the Z-score were calculated and standard scoring (Standard Deviation (SD)) was used to identified malnutrition status. The patients were categorized as 0 to-1 SD mild, -1 to -2 SD moderate and ≤-2 SD severe malnutrition categories. RESULTS: A total of 344 patients were included in the study. Out of which 52% (n=177) were male. According to the Z-score the patients were categorized to malnutrition status as; mild (n= 38, 11.3%), moderate (n=72, 21.5%), severe 157 (46.9%). Most of the patients (n=140, 41.8%) come with the malnutrition as their current complain. Result shows that malnutrition was more prevalent in children age less than 2 years (n=185, 55.2%) with majority 43.6 % had improper breast feeding and (n=168,49%) had improper weaning. Majority of the patients (n=209, 60%) have no records of their vaccination. Most of the parents of the patients (n=160,47%) are uneducated. CONCLUSIONS: The present study concluded that most of the children diagnosed with malnutrition were categorized as severally mal-nutrient, the malnutrition in children was most prevalent in early ages and improper breast feeding and weaning were the main cause of malnutrition, which may be because of the reason that majority of the parents of the children diagnosed with malnutrition were uneducated.