<p>Food prices change constitutes a substantial threat to child nutrition in low-income countries where dietary diversity and food security are already limited. Understanding the differential impacts of these price fluctuations on boys and girls is crucial for formulating equitable nutrition policies. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies have explored the effect of food price changes on child nutrition while addressing gender differences using nationally representative datasets. Moreover, most studies have employed conventional sex-specific regressions. This study examines the effects of regional-level real average food price changes, capturing short-term annual shocks, on the nutritional status of children in Ethiopia, with particular emphasis on gender disparities in malnutrition. Utilizing data from five rounds of the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), we employed anthropometric indicators and the Minimum Acceptable Diet (MAD) measure to evaluate child nutrition. We then applied the Fairlie nonlinear decomposition method to quantify and elucidate gender differences in nutritional outcomes while isolating the contribution of food prices from other covariates. The results indicate that male children are more susceptible to malnutrition than female children, partly due to differences in behavioural and socioeconomic mechanisms, including child, maternal, and household characteristics, type of residence. A 1% increase in food prices resulted in a reduction in weight-for-age and height-for-age Z-scores by 0.01491 and 0.01466, respectively. In comparison, female children exhibited a 2% lower likelihood of being wasted and a 3.7% lower likelihood of being stunted than male children. These findings underscore the need to stabilize food prices and ensure year-round access to diverse foods to mitigate the adverse effects of price shocks and reduce gender disparities in child malnutrition.</p>