title: Importance of characterizing growth trajectories.
abstract: In the era of the obesity epidemic in children, characterizing childhood growth trajectories (weight, length/height, or body mass index/weight for length) is becoming essential for surveillance. Clinicians routinely use growth curves to identify abnormal growth trajectories. Clinical epidemiologists are interested in both the determinants of growth and the consequences of certain patterns of growth on later health and diseases. Characterizing growth trajectories is also helpful to predict future growth based on past growth and might be useful in the future to compare the impact of various interventions.
authors.affiliation: Obesity Prevention Program, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School/Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Mass., USA.
authors.forename: Nolwenn
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Regnault
authors.forename: Matthew W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Gillman
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*