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Problems with the Use of "Weight for Height" Tables

Department of Nutrition, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, London W8 United Kingdom

Two sets of "weight for height" reference data that are widely used internationally for children and adolescents (NCHS) and for adults (Fogarty) show a marked discontinuity such that young adults might be considered obese by one set and underweight by the other. In view of the need for continuous data for the nutritional assessment of populations, a compromise set of reference values is proposed, calculated from the NCHS data, which is considered the more reliable of the two sets. The proposed values are a single set, which may be applied to all ages and to both sexes: they are close to the Fogarty data for tall adults but for shorter adults there remains a discrepancy, which may represent an error in the Fogarty data.

KEY WORDS: • weight • weight for height • anthropometry • nutritional status • obesity

Manuscript received 25 April 1985. Revision accepted 29 August 1985.