TIME FOR A NEW GROWTH REFERENCE

The National Center for Health Statistics growth reference, recommende d by the World Health Organization for international use since the lat e 1970s, has served many useful purposes. Among the most important are the provision of a single set of growth references for the assessment of the general nutritional status of populations of children in diver se settings, as an ancillary tool to screen children for health and nu trition disorders, and as a basis for educational materials that promo te improved child care by families. However, because of serious drawba cks due to the origin and type of data used for their construction and the analytical methods applied in their derivation, the suitability o f these curves for international purposes has been challenged recently .