Abstract
To update the British growth reference, anthropometric
data for weight, height, body mass index (weight/height2)
and head circumference from 17 distinct surveys
representative of England, Scotland and Wales (37,700
children, age range 23 weeks gestation to 23 years) were
analysed by maximum penalized likelihood using the LMS
method. This estimates the measurement centiles in terms of
three age-sex-specific cubic spline curves: the L curve
(Box-Cox power to remove skewness), M curve (median) and S
curve (coefficient of variation). A two-stage fitting
procedure was developed to model the age trends in median
weight and height, and simulation was used to estimate
confidence intervals for the fitted centiles. The reference
converts measurements to standard deviation scores (SDS)
that are very close to Normally distributed - the means,
medians and skewness for the four measurements are
effectively zero overall, with standard deviations very
close to one and only slight evidence of positive kurtosis
beyond+/-2 SDS. The ability to express anthropometry as SDS
greatly simplifies growth assessment.
- adolescent,
- adult,
- age,
- anthropometry,
- body
- cephalometry,
- child,
- confidence
- distribution,
- female,
- functions,
- gestational
- head,
- height,
- humans,
- index,
- infant,
- intervals,
- kingdom
- likelihood
- male,
- mass
- models,
- normal
- preschool,
- reference
- statistical,
- united
- values,
- weight,
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