[Body mass index, weight and height in school children in central Italy]

To study the pattern of distribution for body-mass index, weight and height in children of the Abruzzo region and to compare them with commonly used standards.

Weight, height and body-mass index (BMI, weight/height2) were reported from 2858 school children (6 to 14 years old) of a town of Central Italy (Pescara). Data were detected in 1991. The conventional percentiles were calculated. Then we considered the first (25%), the median (50%) and the third (75%) quartile of all obtained data. Those of the BMI were superimposed on France (Rolland-cachera MF, Eur J Clin Nutr 1991;45:13) and USA (Hammer LD, Am J Dis Child 1991;145:259) standards. Those of weight and height were superimposed on the respective Tanner standards (Tanner JM, Arch Dis Child 1966;41:613).

The percentiles are shown. The central point of distribution (quartiles) appear slid over. The nearer standard for BMI to our sample seems to be represented by France standards, in front of which our values result slid quite exactly of one quartile over. The comparison with USA standards shows an increase of our findings, but the slope of the curves is different (overall in the advanced ages). Both weight and height, compared with Tanner standards, show an increase of values.

1) Different growth patterns are observed in the studied sample; 2) to calculate the prevalence of wasting and fattening conditions using values of cutoff points from not own standards could load to not appropriate estimates.