The nutritional status of a homogenous rural Ethiopian community was st udi ed. A tota l of 1020 children. 498 (48.8% boys & 522 (51.2%) girls ill the age group 6-59 months participated in the study. Factors that may possibly be involved in protein energy malnutrition were studied. As age of study children was difficult to determine to the exact month the' re l atively age indepe ndent anthropometric index weight for he i ght was used. III all cases bivariate analyses was done. 302 (29. 6%) of the study children were found to be below -2 Z-SCORE of the NCHS weight for h ei~.t refere nce. There was no difference in the prevalence of malnutrition in the two sexes . However, boys were heRvier & t aller than girls. Socia- demographic variables like I,.come, family size, polygamy, membership of the family to a farmers' producers co- operatives and maternal literacy did not show any correlation with the nutritional status of the child. Having more t han one child in the age group 6- 59 months old in a family predicted malnutrition. Duration of breast feeding was shown to be inversly related to nutritional status. Recent illnesses of diarrhoea, fever & cough were strongly associated with poor nutritional status. Two hudred fifteen (21.1%) of the study children were cOlnpletely imml.nizcd