{"doi":"10.2471/blt.07.043497","title":"Development of a WHO growth reference for school-aged children and adolescents","abstract":"<h4>Objective</h4>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.<h4>Methods</h4>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.<h4>Findings</h4>The merged data sets resulted in a smooth transition at 5 years for height-for-age, weight-for-age and BMI-for-age. For BMI-for-age across all centiles the magnitude of the difference between the two curves at age 5 years is mostly 0.0 kg/m(2) to 0.1 kg/m(2). At 19 years, the new BMI values at +1 standard deviation (SD) are 25.4 kg/m(2) for boys and 25.0 kg/m(2) for girls. These values are equivalent to the overweight cut-off for adults (> or = 25.0 kg/m(2)). Similarly, the +2 SD value (29.7 kg/m(2) for both sexes) compares closely with the cut-off for obesity (> or = 30.0 kg/m(2)).<h4>Conclusion</h4>The new curves are closely aligned with the WHO Child Growth Standards at 5 years, and the recommended adult cut-offs for overweight and obesity at 19 years. They fill the gap in growth curves and provide an appropriate reference for the 5 to 19 years age group.","journal":"Bulletin of the World Health Organization","year":2007,"id":896,"datarank":21.13397158805952,"base_score":9.062536177207788,"endowment":9.062536177207788,"self_citation_contribution":1.3593804265811684,"citation_network_contribution":19.77459116147835,"self_endowment_contribution":1.3593804265811684,"citer_contribution":19.77459116147835,"corpus_percentile":94.0,"corpus_rank":1705,"citation_count":8625,"citer_count":197,"citers_with_citation_signal":197,"citers_with_endowment":197,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2007-09-01","authors":[{"id":11506,"name":"Mercedes de Onís","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11505,"name":"Mercedes de Onis","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":20,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}