Development of a WHO growth reference for school-aged children and adolescents

To construct growth curves for school-aged children and adolescents that accord with the WHO Child Growth Standards for preschool children and the body mass index (BMI) cut-offs for adults.

Data from the 1977 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)/WHO growth reference (1-24 years) were merged with data from the under-fives growth standards' cross-sectional sample (18-71 months) to smooth the transition between the two samples. State-of-the-art statistical methods used to construct the WHO Child Growth Standards (0-5 years), i.e. the Box-Cox power exponential (BCPE) method with appropriate diagnostic tools for the selection of best models, were applied to this combined sample.