If you are a parent, you are probably acquainted with the growth charts your child’s pediatrician pulls out every year at their well check visit. While they might look familiar year to year, the growth charts can also be confusing. What do they mean? What exactly are they measuring? Is your child’s growth healthy?
Let us help clear up the confusion!
what is a growth chart?
A growth chart is a tool for measuring a child’s physical growth and development. Pediatricians use growth charts to track height, weight, and head circumference growth over time. It can help indicate if a child is following their natural growth curve or if there are variations that could indicate a problem.
In children under 2 years old, the growth charts from the World Health Organization (WHO) are used. For children 2-20 years old, healthcare professionals use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) growth charts. Girls and boys are plotted on different curves as they have different growth patterns.
How to interpret growth charts
Growth charts provide percentile measurements that show where your child is in comparison to other children their age. Age is at the top and bottom of the chart and length and weight are on the left and right sides. The percentiles are shown as lines drawn in curved patterns.
Here are the steps to reading a growth chart:
- Find your child’s age at the bottom of the growth chart and draw a vertical line at this point on the chart.
- Now find your child’s weight (or length) on the right hand side of the chart and draw a horizontal line at this point.
- Where the two lines intersect, draw a dot.
- Find the curve closest to this point and follow it up towards the right to find the percentile number.
Now that you found your child’s weight or length percentile, let’s talk about what that number means. The percentiles range from 5th-95th percentile. If your child is in the 80th percentile for weight, that means they weigh more than 80% of other kids their age. If they are in the 20th percentile for weight, they are only taller than 20% of kids their age in weight.
Each individual child has their own growth pattern. The goal is not the 50th percentile and a child can be perfectly healthy at the 5th or 95th percentile. The goal is that the child follows their own growth curve. If a child’s growth doesn’t follow their typical pattern, it doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem. For example, during puberty, it isn’t uncommon for a child’s growth pattern to change. Providers will take any changes into account along with other factors such as genetics, physical activity, nutrition, health history, and environment. Growth charts are reviewed when assessing an eating disorder in an adolescent.
If your child has undergone any changes in growth and an eating disorder is suspected, our Jumpstart to Recovery Parent and Caregiver Course is the perfect place for you to start to understand next steps.
key takeaway about growth charts
Growth charts can help us understand development trends but shouldn’t be the only means of assessing a child’s health status. Kids grow at their own pace and healthy children come in all shapes and sizes!
If you have concerns about your child’s nutrition or would like support in promoting a healthy relationship with food and body in your family, reach out to our office or sign up for our Jumpstart to Recovery Course for Parents and Caregivers.
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