Local growth charts for an Iranian child population aged 2-5 years in comparison with the World Health Organization Child Growth Standards

Abstract

Background There are no national reference charts in Iran for children aged under five. This study aimed to develop representative growth reference charts of height, weight, and BMI for children aged 2-5 years in Isfahan, Iran, and to compare them with the WHO reference curves. Results This population-based study has a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional design. It included 1325 and 761 healthy children, who were born between 2002 and 2015 in Isfahan, central Iran, in longitudinal and cross-sectional phases. Expert health care providers measured the height and weight of children in health centers. The lambda-mu-sigma method was used to construct the age- and sex-specific growth charts of anthropometric measures. The study sample comprised 1029 boys and 1057 girls. The centiles of height, weight, and BMI of boys were higher than that of girls in all age groups. The weight patterns of studied children were close to those of the WHO references in the lower percentiles. However, our study children, especially girls, were lighter compared with WHO standards based on the middle and upper percentiles of the weight distribution. Compared with WHO standards, boys of our study were taller especially at older ages. The percentiles of the BMI for our study samples were considerably lower than WHO standards. Conclusion There are differences between our local growth charts for weight, height, and BMI with WHO standards. The local growth standards could be more precise for assessing growth problems in local and national settings. Due to notable differences between our results with WHO standards, future studies are warranted for constructing nationwide growth charts.