Determination of the actual height predictors in Iranian healthy children

Tirang Reza Neyestani1, Monireh Dad-Khah, Homa Haidari

  • 1National Research Institute and Faculty of Nutritional Sciences and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. tneyestani@nnftri.ac.ir

Acta Medica Iranica
|June 18, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Arm length (AL) and tibia length (TL) are reliable predictors of height in healthy Iranian children aged 7-11. These measurements can be used to estimate height in hospitalized or disabled children when direct measurement is not possible.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatrics
  • Anthropometry
  • Nutritional Assessment

Background:

  • Accurate height measurement is crucial for assessing child nutrition.
  • Challenges arise in measuring height for hospitalized or disabled children.
  • Need for reliable height proxies in specific pediatric populations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify accurate height predictors in healthy Iranian children.
  • To enable height estimation in children unable to be measured directly.
  • To validate anthropometric measures as height proxies.

Main Methods:

  • Cross-sectional study of 730 healthy Iranian children (7-11 years).
  • Measured height, demispan (DS), halfspan (HS), arm length (AL), and tibia length (TL).
  • Utilized linear regression models to establish relationships between height and predictors.

Main Results:

  • Arm length (AL) and tibia length (TL) showed strong correlations with height in both boys and girls.
  • Halfspan (HS) and age were also significant predictors for girls.
  • Demispan (DS) was a predictor only in Tehran.
  • Arm length (AL) demonstrated high concordance with actual height across percentiles.

Conclusions:

  • Arm length (AL) is proposed as a reliable and practical height proxy for children aged 7-11.
  • Findings support the use of AL for height estimation in clinical and field settings.
  • This research provides valuable tools for nutritional assessment in challenging pediatric cases.

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