New Trends in Weight-for-Height Charts of Shirazi School Children in Relation to the CDC Reference Data

OBJECTIVE The paper presents a new trend of weight-for-height index of 2397 school children (1268 boys and 1129 girls) aged 6.5-11.5 years by sex in a representative sample from primary schools of Shiraz (Southern Iran) at an interval of 15 years (1988-2003) and its relation to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data (2000). METHODS The data relate to a multi-stage random sample of healthy school children in Shiraz, southern Iran, collected in 2002-2003 academic year. The mean±SD age of these children was 9.1±1.4 yaers. The weight and height were estimated as 28.2±6.9 kg and 131.3±9.6 cm, respectively. Cross-sectional weight-for-height curves were constructed for both sexes. Parametric Lambda-Median-Standard Deviation (LMS) method was applied to estimate weight-for-height centiles. FINDINGS Weight-for-height centiles for boys and girls were nearly close to each other, except for the children of older age in which boys' centiles lay below those of girls. Centiles of the present study lay above previous ones. In both sexes CDC weights were greater than those of Iranians for a given height. This discrepancy was more pronounced in extreme high centiles. CONCLUSION The necessity for updating local weight-for-height reference data for clinical work in Iran is emphasized. The positive trend in weight-for-height had been influenced by socio-economic development and improvement of health indicators in Iran during the post war reconstruction period.