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Patterns of Linear Growth in Rural Guatemalan Adolescents and Children^1,2,

Reynaldo Martorell^*,3, Dirk G. Schroeder^*, Juan A. Rivera and Haley J. Kaplowitz

^* Department of International Health, The Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 Centro de Investigaciones en Salud Pública, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, 62508 Cuernavaca, Morelos, México Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080

Length and weight data from a longitudinal study of rural Guatemalan subjects birth to 7 y of age and height and weight data from a cross-sectional study of the same subjects when they were 11–24.9 y old are compared to reference data for the USA general population and for Mexican-Americans. At birth, the median length of Guatemalan children is at the 16th percentile of the USA reference of 2 cm shorter. By 6 mo of age, Guatemalan children are shorter, on average, than the 5th percentile of the reference curves and, in absolute terms, are 5 cm below the median; by 3 y, the difference increases to 10 cm. As adults, Guatemalans have about the same absolute level of deficit (13 cm) as they did at age 3 y. If the general USA population is used for comparison, Guatemalans can be said to grow as expected during adolescence, neither recuperating the growth retardation of early childhood nor falling further behind in size. If the Mexican-American sample is selected instead, it would appear that some catch-up in growth occurs in Guatemalan adolescents. Regardless of the choice of reference population, growth is markedly retarded only in early childhood; adolescence is not a period when growth is significantly constrained.

KEY WORDS: • growth • anthropometry • adolescence • rural Guatemala

¹ Published as a supplement to The Journal of Nutrition. Guest editors for this supplemental publication were Reynaldo Martorell, The Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, GA, and Nevin Scrimshaw, The United Nations University, Boston, MA.

² Data collection and analyses were supported by NIH grant HD22440 and by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), Contract # IC-75/03.

³ To whom correspondence should be sent: Department of International Health, The Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, N.E., Atlanta, GA 30322.

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