A comparison of the National Center for Health Statistics and new World Health Organization growth references for school-age children and adolescents with the use of data from 11 low-income countries

Abstract

In undernourished populations, the application of the WHO (2007) references may result in differences in the prevalence of stunting for each sex compared with results shown when the NCHS references are used as well as a higher estimated prevalence of thinness than of wasting. An awareness of these differences is important for comparative studies or the evaluation of programs. For school-age children and adolescents across all ranges of anthropometric status, the same growth references should be applied when such studies are undertaken.

Os Percentis e Pontos de Corte da Circunferência Abdominal para Obesidade em uma Ampla Amostra de Estudantes de 6 a 10 Anos de Idade do Estado de São Paulo, Brasil

“…[4][5][6][7] Já que os valores da CA são influenciados pela idade, sexo, diferenças étnicas e geopolíticas, estudos disponíveis apresentaram a distribuição de percentis da CA em crianças e adolescentes de um grande número de países. Tomando isso como base, pretendemos reforçar o conjunto de informações já relatado em alguns estudos nacionais sobre esse assunto, [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] por meio da descrição da distribuição de percentis da CA e do cálculo de pontos de corte da CA capazes de prever a obesidade em uma ampla amostra de crianças, de 6 a 10 anos de idade, no estado de São Paulo. Além disso, comparamos os percentis atuais da CA com dados obtidos a partir de estudos realizados em outros países e de outro estudo brasileiro, que avaliaram população semelhante, em função da idade e do sexo.…”

Technical note: Comparison of the maresh reference data with the who international standard for normal growth in healthy children

“…The central question throughout much of this literature is whether or not assessments of population growth are dependent on the growth reference used. More specifically, do estimates of the prevalence of childhood stunting (e.g., Eckhardt and Adair,2002; Moestue et al,2004; Rousham et al,2011), wasting (de Onis et al,2006), and obesity (Wang and Wang,2002) vary according to the growth references used? In a comparison of growth references released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics, Eckardt and Adair (2002) found large differences in stunting prevalence for some ages for a sample of presumably undernourished children from the Philippines, despite a general similarity in centile curves.…”

Applying the WHO instead of CDC growth charts may double obesity rates

“…We only found a few studies that performed the same analysis in children aged 5 -19. A study of 20,605 school children in 11 low-income countries demonstrated differences predominantly in the prevalence of thinness rather than wasting [14]. A Pakistani study of 1860 children demonstrated a higher proportion of over-nutrition when using the WHO growth charts, while thinness was lower [15].…”