Related Experiment Videos
Growth standards for poor urban children in nutrition studies
Insights
Growth patterns in poor Peruvian children revealed significant deviations from standard references. New, population-specific growth quotients are essential for accurate assessment, accounting for local factors.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Human Growth and Development
- Nutritional Science
Background:
- Assessing growth in diverse populations requires age- and sex-independent metrics.
- Standard growth references may not accurately reflect local variations in child development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate environmental and dietary factors influencing growth in 123 impoverished Peruvian urban children (2-19 years).
- To develop appropriate anthropometric indices for assessing growth in this specific population.
Main Methods:
- Calculated height and weight quotients using Boston reference data (50th percentile).
- Analyzed weight-for-height quotients to assess relative weight.
- Developed new population-specific growth quotients from a larger Peruvian cohort.
Main Results:
- Most children (95% height, 82% weight) fell below the Boston 50th percentile.
- 88% exhibited weight appropriate or excessive for their height.
- Catch-up growth observed in preschoolers; significant gains noted during puberty (girls 8-13.5 yrs, boys 10-17 yrs).
- Boston-derived quotients showed age-dependent trends, unsuitable for statistical analysis.
- New Peruvian-derived quotients demonstrated no age or sex dependency.
Conclusions:
- Standard growth references like the Boston data are inadequate for Peruvian children.
- Population-specific growth quotients are crucial for accurate anthropometric and nutritional assessments.
- Racial and regional variations necessitate tailored approaches to growth monitoring.
Abstract:
In order to estimate the importance of a variety of environmental and dietary factors as determinants of growth in a group of 123 poor Peruvian urban children between 2 and 19 years old, we found it necessary to express anthropometric measurements in units that were not age- or sex-dependent. Height quotient and weight quotient for each child were calculated from height and weight ages derived from the 50th percentile of the Boston reference data for the appropriate sex. Only 5% of the children had heights above the Boston 50th percentile (height quotient greater than 100) and 18% had weights above the 50th percentile (weight quotient greater than 100), but 88% had weights that were appropriate or excessive for height (weight/height quotient greater than or equal to 1.00). Some CATch-up" gains in relative height and weight were apparent in preschool children but more impressive gains in both linear and ponderal growth, relative to the Boston data, were evident between 8 and 13.5 years in girls and 10 and 17 years in boys. When the same quotients were calculated for a much larger sample from the same socioceonomic level it seemed likely that this last peak was due to earlier puberty and sexual maturation, and that quotients derived from the Boston data would have different meanings at different ages, making them inappropriate for further statistical analysis. New quotients for the study population, derived from the larger Peruvian group, did not have sex- or age-dependent trends. Racial and regional differences in patterns of growth must be taken into account in the interpretation of anthropometric and nutritional data.