This paper considers evidence from the Tanzania National Panel Survey of 2008/9 and 20010/11 to assess how far issues of consumption poverty, food security and malnutrition are related for young children in Tanzania.   Food security issues are analyzed to assess the calorific and other nutritional qualities of food consumption for households with young children alongside several indicators of food insecurity, including past episodes of hunger, food allocation to children in the household and recent coping strategies to food scarcity.  The prevalence and depth of these food security issues is then profiled alongside the consumption levels of the household and the malnutrition status of children living within it.   The panel nature of the survey is then exploited to consider issues of persistence in poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, with a focus on the cohort of younger children aged 6-36 months in the first year of the survey.   A discussion on the options for policy responses considers the role of responding to shocks verses persistent disadvantage and how far consumption smoothing or nutrition interventions appear most appropriate for policy.