Polish 2012 growth references for preschool children

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Anthropometry
• Public Health

Background:

• Child growth monitoring is crucial for healthcare.
• Existing growth references may not accurately reflect current Polish preschool children's stature.
• International standards like WHO and German references require comparison with local data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish updated, population-representative growth references for Polish preschool children (ages 3-6).
• To compare these new references with World Health Organization (WHO) growth standards and German references.
• To assess Polish children's growth patterns against international benchmarks.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the LMS method for constructing height-, weight-, BMI-for-age, and weight-for-height references.
• Employed data from the OLA study, a large, population-representative sample of 4,941 Polish children aged 3-6 years.
• Performed statistical comparisons between new Polish references and existing WHO/German references.

Main Results:

• New Polish and German height references for boys showed near-complete overlap, while WHO percentiles were lower.
• Polish and German height references for girls aligned at the 3rd and 50th percentiles; WHO references indicated shorter stature.
• Polish preschool children exhibited significantly higher mean z-scores for height, weight, and BMI relative to WHO standards.
• The prevalence of children below -2 SD for height-for-age was lower, and above +2 SD was higher than expected compared to WHO standards.

Conclusions:

• The OLA study provides robust, updated growth references for Polish preschool children.
• These new references are recommended for national use in Poland.
• Findings highlight significant divergence of Polish children's growth from WHO standards, necessitating localized reference data.