The objective of this study is to compare the nutritional status of legitimate children and that of children born out-of-wedlock in Cameroon. The study is founded on two hypotheses: the cultural stigma hypothesis and the characteristics hypothesis. Analysis is based on 1498 children underthree years of age and living with their mother from the 1998 Cameroon Demographic and Health Survey. Children born out of wedlock represent 7.4 % of all children studied. The paper shows that, in Cameroon, children born out-of-wedlock experienced low risk of malnourishment(28%) about 10 percent points lower than legitimate children (38%). In fact the likelihood of out-of-wedlock childbearing is higher among educated and/or urban women whose children are lessexposed to malnourishment. Obviously mother’s socioeconomic characteristics particularlymother’s education remain the fundamental factors of child malnutrition in Cameroon. However,though findings don’t support the cultural stigmatization hypothesis, they could not reject it either.