[quote=@Lord Wraith]
Meta-Humans are people who gain abilities through external incidents where as Mutants are born with a genetic mutation. 
[/quote]

Showing my age again, but in the 1984 [i]Power Pack[/i] series that distinction is a recurring plot point. The kids, because they're kids with powers, are assumed to be mutants by the populace and hated appropriately for it (vice the love and feels the Avengers gets... no double standard at all there). They even have a recurring villain, the Boogeyman, whose sole agenda is based on the perception that the kids are mutants when they're not (they got their powers from an alien sorcerer).

On the flip side, the kids are friends and allies of the X-Men but are always at arm's length because they're not mutants (so they can't, for example, visit X-Factor's ship that only mutants may enter).