Anthropometric Growth Reference for Indian Children and Adolescents

We aimed to develop anthropometric growth references for Indian children and adolescents, based on available ‘healthy’ child data from multiple national surveys

Data on ‘healthy’ children, defined by comparable WHO’s Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS) selection criteria, were extracted from four Indian surveys over the last 2 decades, viz, NFHS-3, 4, and 5 and Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS). Reference distributions of height-for-age for children up to 19 years, weight-for-age for children up to 9y, weight-for-height for children less than 5 years and BMI for age for children between 5–19 y were estimated by GAMLSS with Box-Cox Power Exponential (BCPE) family. The national prevalence of growth faltering was also estimated by the NFHS-5 and CNNS data.

The distributions of the new proposed Indian growth references are consistently lower than the WHO global standard, except in the first 6 months of age. Based on these references, growth faltering in Indian children and adolescents reduced > 50% in comparison with the WHO standard.

The study findings revealed that the WHO one-standard-fits-all approach may lead to inflated estimates of under nutrition in India and could be a driver of misdirected policy and public health expenditure in the Indian context. However, these findings need validation through prospective and focussed studies for more robust evidence base.