WHO child growth standards

The WHO growth curves provide a single international standard that represents the best description of physiological growth for all children from birth to 5 years of age and establish the breastfed infant as the normative model for growth and development. WHO organizes national and regional capacity building workshops in this area. 

These anthropometric tools provide more accurate estimates for undernutrition and overweight and permit early identification of children who are becoming undernourished or overweight. In addition, the WHO child growth standards also show how children should grow. They demonstrate that children born in different regions and given the optimum start in life have the potential to grow and develop to within the same range of height and weight for age.

Normal growth is an essential expression of health and a way to measure efforts designed to reduce child mortality and disease.