Height, weight, height velocity of primary school population sample in Campania region

Aim of this study was to plot height, weight and height velocity values of primary school civic population of Portici and Ercolano, Campania towns, on Tanner's charts in order to verify the overlapping of percentile distribution. On May 1994 height and weight were measured in 3504 children (1735 boys and 1769 girls, aged 5.4-16.1 years, mean age = 8.6 years) from the 1st, 2nd and 5th year of primary schools in Portici and Ercolano. One year later, on May 1995, we remeasured and reweighed 1583 (781 boys and 802 girls, aged 6.4-14.2 years, mean age = 9.6 years) out of total children and we calculated height velocity (HV). The height and weight profiles of our population sample show that children in Portici and Ercolano are taller and fatter than those measured by Tanner and Whitehouse 25-30 years ago. The calculation of body mass index (BMI) confirmed that 30% of total children were obese. Furthermore, the evaluation of one-year HV revealed a clear improvement of linear growth. Our data suggest that Tanner and Whitehouse charts should be updated, and it should be useful to elaborate also height, weight and HV standards derived from present-day population.