GROWTH OF SCHOOL-CHILDREN OF SOUTHERN IRAN IN RELATION TO THE NCHS STANDARD

Height and weight of school children aged 6-12 years in Shiraz (Iran) are reported. The smooth centile values have been derived from the raw data by Healy's nonparametric method. Median heights and weights of children in Shiraz lie approximately on the 25th centile of US children, but are above most groups of children from the developing world. The spread of the data is similar to that observed in US, and there is no evidence of widespread malnutrition. These observations suggest that local growth standards should be used in clinical work.