Physical development of children in St. Petersburg: to the discussion about methods of evaluation

Abstract

Anthropometric evaluation is an essential feature of pediatric evaluation. Different countries use different approaches in pediatric growth assessment. The article presents a comparative analysis of the body length (BL) indicators of modern school-age children in St. Petersburg with regional standards (1991) and international standards (WHO Growth Reference 2007). Anthropometric evaluation was conducted among 6207 children aged 7 to 17 years; the median, standard deviation and centile distribution of the BL values of school-age children were determined. We found that the values of BL of modern school-age children are higher than that their peers had thirty years ago; in boys, the maximum difference is found during the pubertal growth spurt; Non-parametric and parametric indicators of BL in senior pupils of St. Petersburg are higher than in the standards of the World Health Organization; in junior schoolchildren no difference was found. The data we obtained create the prerequisites for the development of modern regional standards for growth assessment of children and school-age children in St. Petersburg and their practical use for pediatric examinations.