title: Austrian height and body proportion references for children aged 4 to under 19 years.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous studies have demonstrated differences between national and the WHO reference curves in children older than 5 years. Moreover, reference curves for body proportions (sitting height, subischial leg length and their ratio) based on state-of-the-art statistics are not available.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To develop reference curves for height and body proportions for use in Austria and compare the curves with WHO reference curves. To estimate and statistically investigate extreme percentiles.
  
  
  METHODS
  A sample of ∼14 500 children between 4-19 years of age was drawn via schooling institutions, stratified by provinces according to age- and sex-specific population proportions. GAMLSS models were used for a flexible estimation of percentile curves.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  After the age of 5 years national reference curves are more suitable than the WHO reference curves for clinical use in Austria. These height curves are very similar to the German reference curves published recently. Therefore, these reference curves for criteria of body proportions are recommended for use in other populations. Further validation studies are needed to establish whether the recently recommended -2.5 and -3.0 SD for height are a sensitive and specific cut-off in the diagnostic work-up for children with a suspected growth disorder using this new Austrian height chart.
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics, and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gleiss
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lassi
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Blümel
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Borkenstein
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kapelari
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mayer
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schemper
authors.forename: Gabriele
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Häusler
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000886:Anthropometry; D001317:Austria; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D057238:Growth Charts; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012015:Reference Standards; D014944:World Health Organization