Bulletin of the World Health Organization

Development of a WHO growth reference for school-aged children and adolescents

Mercedes de Onis, Adelheid W Onyango, Elaine Borghi, Amani Siyam, Chizuru Nishida, Jonathan Siekmann

Volume 85, Number 9, September 2007, 660-667

Table 1. Reference values for height-for-age, weight-for-age and body mass index-for-age at 5 years by sex for the 1977 and 2007 references, and the WHO Child Growth Standards

1977 reference 2007 reference WHO standardsa 1977 reference 2007 reference WHO standardsa
Z-scores
 Boys
Girls
Height-for-age (cm)
–3 SD 96.1 96.0 96.1 95.1 94.9 95.2
–2 SD 100.7 100.6 100.7 99.5 99.6 99.9
–1 SD 105.3 105.2 105.3 104.0 104.3 104.7
Median 109.9 109.7 110.0 108.4 109.1 109.4
+1 SD 114.5 114.3 114.6 112.8 113.8 114.2
+2 SD 119.1 118.8 119.2 117.2 118.6 118.9
+3 SD
 123.7
 123.4
 123.9
121.6
 123.3
 123.7
Weight-for-age (kg)
–3 SD 12.3 12.6 12.4 11.9 12.2 12.1
–2 SD 14.4 14.2 14.1 13.8 13.8 13.7
–1 SD 16.6 16.1 16.0 15.7 15.8 15.8
Median 18.7 18.3 18.3 17.7 18.1 18.2
+1 SD 21.1 20.9 21.0 20.4 21.0 21.2
+2 SD 23.5 23.9 24.2 23.2 24.5 24.9
+3 SD
 25.9
 27.5
 27.9
26.0
 29.1
 29.5
Body mass index-for-age (kg/m²)b
–3 SD – 12.1 12.0 – 11.8 11.6
–2 SD – 13.0 12.9 – 12.8 12.7
–1 SD – 14.1 14.0 – 13.9 13.9
Median – 15.3 15.2 – 15.2 15.3
+1 SD – 16.6 16.6 – 16.9 16.9
+2 SD – 18.2 18.3 – 18.8 18.8
+3 SD – 20.1 20.3 – 21.3 21.1

a WHO Child Growth Standards for 0–5 years of age.2,10b For BMI, the 1991 reference data start at 9 years of age.4