Worldwide Timing of Growth Faltering: Revisiting Implications for Interventions

Our goal was to describe worldwide growth-faltering patterns by using the new World Health Organization (WHO) standards.

We analyzed information available from the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition, comprising data from national anthropometric surveys from 54 countries. Anthropometric data comprise weight-for-age, length/height-for-age, and weight-for-length/height z scores. The WHO regions were used to aggregate countries: Europe and Central Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; North Africa and Middle East; South Asia; and sub-Saharan Africa.