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

Abstract

The Maresh reference data on stature and long bone lengths in a sample of healthy middle-class children from Denver, Colorado [Maresh: Am J Dis Child 66 (1943) 227-257; Maresh: Am J Dis Child 89 (1955) 725-742; Maresh: Human growth and development (1970) p 155-200], have been used extensively by biological anthropologists to estimate juvenile age and body size using skeletal elements and to assess growth in skeletal series from different ethnic populations or archaeological cultural groups. How well these data reflect the potentially diverse growth patterns of healthy human populations from different geographic areas is unknown. Similarly, the efficacy of using the Maresh reference data to estimate stunting prevalence in prehistoric populations is unknown. This report presents the results from a comparison of the Maresh data on supine length and standing height to the World Health Organization (WHO) international child growth standard. The WHO growth standard is meant to depict typical human growth under optimal conditions and can be used to assess children worldwide, regardless of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. The results from this comparison indicate that although the Maresh reference data generally conform to the WHO standard, reflecting a normal human growth pattern, and therefore serve as a suitable reference for comparative studies of growth patterns, these reference data are not suitable for estimating stunting prevalence.

Patterns of long bone growth in a mid‐19th century documented sample of the urban poor from Bethnal Green, London, UK

“…This population sample has been extensively used in comparisons with archaeological series and is considered indicative of a healthy and well‐nourished modern group (Armelagos et al, ; Cardoso, ; Geber, ; Hoppa, ; Humphrey, ; Lovejoy et al, ; Lewis, ; Mays, ; Merchant and Ubelaker, ; Pfeiffer and Harrington, ; Pinhasi, Teschler‐Nicola, Knaus, & Shaw, ; Saunders et al, ; Schillaci et al, ; Y'Ednak, ). Recently, Schillaci, Sachdev, & Bhargava () have shown that child stature presented in the Maresh study shows a similar pattern of growth to that reported in the World Health Organisation Child Growth Standard, which represents a standardised model of optimum childhood growth (World Health Organisation Multicenter Growth Reference Study Group, ). As such, the Denver data have been considered to be suitable for investigations of normal healthy patterns of child growth (Geber, ; Schillaci et al, ).…”

Ontogeny of the female femur: geometric morphometric analysis applied on current living individuals of a Spanish population

“…, , , ,b; Rissech & Malgosa, , ; Rissech & Black, ; Schillaci et al. , ; López‐Costas et al. among others), very few works have been based on the study of material from Western European children (Alduc‐le Bagousse, ; Hoppa, ; Miles & Bulman, , ; Majó, ; Rissech et al.…”

“…Although there is a relatively large number of studies on human skeletal growth (Greulich & Thoms, 1938;Reynolds, 1945Reynolds, , 1947Ghantus, 1951;Maresh, 1955;Greulich, 1960;Garn, 1962;Tanner, 1962;Coleman, 1969;Pyle et al 1971;Gindhart, 1973;Tanner et al 1976;Hoffman, 1979;Alduc-le Bagousse, 1988;Gasser et al 1985Gasser et al , 1991Hoppa, 1992;Miles & Bulman, 1994Maj o, 2000;Rissech et al 2001Rissech et al , 2003Rissech et al , 2008Rissech et al , 2013aRissech & Malgosa, 2005Rissech & Black, 2007;Schillaci et al 2011Schillaci et al , 2012L opez-Costas et al 2012 among others), very few works have been based on the study of material from Western European children (Alduc-le Bagousse, 1988;Hoppa, 1992;Miles & Bulman, 1994Maj o, 2000;Rissech et al 2001Rissech et al , 2003Rissech et al , 2008Rissech et al , 2013aRissech & Malgosa, 2005Rissech & Black, 2007;L opez-Costas et al 2012), and particularly on children of Spanish populations (Rissech et al 2013b). Mos...…”

Ontogeny of the male femur: Geometric morphometric analysis applied to a contemporary Spanish population

“…Furthermore, it is essential that the reference population used to create the model be biologically comparable to the analysed sample, since the accuracy of the estimations depends on the application of appropriate data relating to the development of the skeletal elements with regard to genetic, environmental and cultural factors (Biewener and Bertram, ; McGuigan et al, ; Rissech et al, ). However, in spite of the importance of having a register of growth and maturation values from different skeletal elements and populations, and the large amount of studies on human skeletal development (Greulich and Thoms, ; Greulich, ; Garn, ; Tanner, ; Coleman, ; Pyle et al, ; Gindhart, ; Tanner et al, ; Hoppa, ; Miles and Bulman, ; Rissech et al, ; Frelat and Mitteroecker, ; Schillaci et al, ; López‐Costas et al, ), there is still a serious lack of information regarding the development of many of the elements of the human skeleton in different populations (Rissech et al, ).…”