A method for adjusting the international growth curves for local use in the assessment of nutritional status of Saudi pre-school children.
The aim of this study is to illustrate a method for adjusting the internationally used National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) growth curves for local use in the assessment of nutritional status of Saudi children. All children 1-60 months in three semiurban-rural communities in Asir region, Saudi Arabia (N = 1168) were subjected to weight and height (or length) measurements. These measurements were individually compared with those of the NCHS reference population. The distribution of the study population was found to be significantly shifted to the left of the normal distribution for reference population on the percentile growth curves (P < 0.001). This denoted the inappropriateness of the NCHS reference standards for local use. Accordingly, the lower limits for the expected normal on the growth curves has been shifted from the 3rd percentile line to -3 standard deviation line, to be suitable for the Saudi children. This led to 70% & 56% reductions in the estimation of undernutrition, based on wt/age and ht/age indicators respectively. It is recommended that this adjustment be supported by other studies locally and in other developing countries.
Abolfotouh
M A
MA
Department of Family & Community Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Abu-Zeid
H A
HA
Badawi
I A
IA
Mahfouz
A A
AA
D000886:Anthropometry; D001827:Body Height; D001835:Body Weight; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009752:Nutritional Status; D012016:Reference Values; D012529:Saudi Arabia