Weight-for-length/height growth curves for children and adolescents in China in comparison with body mass index in prevalence estimates of malnutrition

Background: It is important to update weight-for-length/height growth curves in China and re-examine their performance in screening malnutrition. Aim: To develop weight-for-length/height growth curves for Chinese children and adolescents. Subjects and methods: A total of 94 302 children aged 0-19 years with complete sex, age, weight and length/height data were obtained from two cross-sectional large-scaled national surveys in China. Weight-for-length/height growth curves were constructed using the LMS method before and after average spermarcheal/menarcheal ages, respectively. Screening performance in prevalence estimates of wasting, overweight and obesity was compared between weight-for-height and body mass index (BMI) criteria based on a test population of 21416 children aged 3-18. Results: The smoothed weight-for-length percentiles and Z-scores growth curves with length 46-110 cm for both sexes and weight-for-height with height 70-180 cm for boys and 70-170 cm for girls were established. The weight-for-height and BMI-for-age had strong correlation in screening wasting, overweight and obesity in each age-sex group. There was no striking difference in prevalence estimates of wasting, overweight and obesity between two indicators except for obesity prevalence at ages 6-11. Conclusion: This set of smoothed weight-for-length/height growth curves may be useful in assessing nutritional status from infants to post-pubertal adolescents.