At a given point in time, one factor might be more causal than others. Sick, malnourished children often do poorly in school, become dropouts, have children without being married, and feel that they will never be able to succeed. They then find it difficult to provide good nutrition, decent guidance or motivation to their children. Their problems are often reproduced in the next generation. It would be incorrect to say that poverty causes malnutrition.
Many factors can cause malnutrition.
One could say that poverty can be a contributing factor to malnutrition or that ignorance is often a factor related to poverty. Below are a few statements that offer a single causal explanation for situations or conditions that are far more complex. A frequent mistake is to ascribe causation to correlation. A relationship is causal if one factor directly brings about another, that is, the second factor could not have and would not have occurred if not for the first. As stated above, almost never is there a single cause for social phenomena.