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Updated: May 24, 2026
Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
Published on: February 2, 2017
Performance of WHO growth standards on Indian children with growth related disorders
Hemchand Krishna Prasad1, Veena Ekbote, Vaishakhi Rustagi
1Department of Pediatric Endocrinology, Bharati Vidyapeeth University Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
Insights
The WHO 2006 growth standards effectively classify children with growth disorders, aligning with clinical assessments. These standards offer a valuable tool for pediatricians evaluating child growth in clinical settings.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric endocrinology
- Growth and development
- Public health nutrition
Background:
- Assessing child growth is crucial for identifying potential health issues.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) 2006 growth standards provide a benchmark for evaluating child development.
- Specialized pediatric clinics manage children with diverse growth-related disorders.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the performance of the WHO 2006 growth standards.
- To assess anthropometric measurements of children with growth disorders in a pediatric clinic in Pune, India.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective analysis of case records for 1840 children (birth to 60 months) with growth disorders and 824 healthy controls.
- Children were categorized into eight clinical groups based on diagnosis.
- Anthropometric parameters were converted to standard deviation (SD) scores using WHO Anthro 2005 software.
Main Results:
- Children with growth disorders showed significantly lower mean height SD scores compared to controls.
- Tall children exhibited significantly higher mean height SD scores.
- Weight-for-height SD scores were lowest in children with nutritional/systemic disorders and highest in obese children.
Conclusions:
- The WHO 2006 growth standards accurately classify children with growth disorders.
- The classification aligns well with clinical assessments.
- These standards serve as an effective clinical tool for assessing pediatric growth.
Objective:
To assess performance of WHO 2006 standards on anthropometric measurements of children referred for growth related disorders to a speciality pediatric clinic in Pune, India, from June 2006 through June 2010.
Methods:
Data presented in this study were collected retrospectively from case records of all children from birth to 60 mo (n=1840, mean age 2.7±1.3 y) who presented with growth related disorders; healthy age and sex matched children were recruited as controls (n=824, mean age 2.8±1.2 y). Children were divided as per their clinical diagnosis into eight different groups: growth hormone deficiency, bone disorders, syndromic short stature, familial short stature, hypothyroidism, nutritional and systemic disorder, other endocrinopathies and overgrowth disorders. Anthropometric parameters for all study subjects were converted to standard deviation scores (SD scores) using the WHO Anthro 2005.
Results:
Mean height SD scores of children with growth related disorders were significantly lower than that of the controls, while that of the tall children were significantly higher (p<0.05). All children who were clinically very short were below the 1st percentile, while none of the children with overgrowth or normal children were classified as stunted. Weight for height SD scores of children with nutritional and systemic disorders were the lowest, while those for the obese children were the highest.
Conclusions:
The present results suggest that the WHO 2006 growth standards classify children with growth disorders appropriately and the classification is in concordance with the clinical assessment. They provide health practitioners in a clinical setting with an effective tool to assess growth of children.
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