World Health Organization created growth standard for children under the age of five in year 2006. The standards come from kids whose upbringing eliminated growth inhibitors such a bad diet and illness. Additionally, their mothers practiced healthy habits including nursing and eliminating smoking both during and after pregnancy. The criteria offer a better method for evaluating growth since they show physiological human growth under ideal environmental conditions. Thus, rather of serving as descriptive references, these charts serve as prescriptive guidelines. The World Health Organization-Child Growth Standard is based on the findings of the Multicentre Growth Reference Study, a comprehensive longitudinal study carried out from 1997 to 2003 with a pooled sample of more than 8,400 kids from a diverse set of six countries on different continents.
The World Health Organization (WHO) created and recommended the Child Growth Standards (CGS) as the only international benchmarks for measuring and tracking young children's growth and nutritional health across nations. These standards offer an opportunity to reevaluate and revitalize efforts to support optimal child growth, encourage the adoption of "best practices," such as incorporating height and BMI to assess the dual burden of under- and over-nutrition (stunting and overweight); and provide coherence between national and international infant feeding guidelines, which recommend breastfeeding as the best source of nutrition during infancy. Charts are also recommended for evaluating the progress of children who are stunted or overweight. World Health Organization advises using -2Z (3rd percentile) scores for diagnosing stunting and underweight and -3Z (1st percentile) scores for diagnosing severe stunting and severe underweight. The WHO Child Growth Standards are an important tool for the early detection of overweight, growth problems, and wasting.
PDO I Ayesa Gay A. Bejerano, RND
References:
The WHO Child Growth Standards for children under 5 years
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17895945/
Child growth standard
https://www.who.int/tools/child-growth-standards
Growth Chart: A diagnostic tool
