To think the WHO centiles aren't right?

[BMaman]

After playing in DMs garden today and seeing DD6 next to her (much more "solid") cousins I was talking to my sister about what the kids weigh/their height.

My DD is about 40% for weight and 70% for height so does look slim. But her two are both well in the 90s for weight and above 50 for height.

Yet next to other kids their ages none of them seem incredibly big/tall. I was very surprised to think my DD counts as tall for her age, she never seems it.

So I just asked my friends about their kids weights and heights.

None are under 50. For either. Most appear to be in the 90s two even above 98% for height.

Surely the whole point of the % is that of 100 children you'd get one of each %?

Are the WHO graphs particularly out of date? Or do I know a spread of large kids?

What ages are your children and what % are they for weight and height? Thought maybe a bigger spread across the country on here would be interesting to hear.

it is for the world, not any specific country. Understand that china has 1.3 billion people at least, most of whom would be considered small by european standards, India similar story, then think about Korea, Japan, vietnam, Thailand etc.

My DD was on 9th for height for years. She eas visibly smaller than most of the preschool class, but not the smallest.
She's now on the 75th, and is definitely amongst the taller ones in the class (Yr2)..

DD1 is 91st+. She looks tall with Dr friends, but not overly. But is one of the youngest in the class.

I suspect you just know large kids tbh. Both my dds were in the 90s for both weight and height, but they both had friends who were much, much smaller than they were. In the toddler group we used to go to the spread was the full range of the centiles, from dd1 above the 98 th centile to her little friend who was tiny and only just on the 2nd centile. Her friend was over 6 months older but dd1 was always slightly larger, although obviously not as developmentally mature. People always assumed dd was older than she was, and they always assumed her friends was younger than she was.

Oh! Ok that I didn't consider at all.

So yes children here will be at the top end of the scales generally speaking.

Thanks.

The growth charts are based on UK-90 data for preterm to 2 week old babies and children 4+ years. This data was collected in the 80s.

From 2 weeks to 4yrs they are based on WHO data collected in 6 countries.

My short girl 25% centile for height now 16 had her puberty spurt ( for all that it was) three years ago now measures 5ft 1in. Fortunate for her she has a young look and wants to become an Actor so hopefully will spend many years being able to play down.

My 2 are 10 and are still on the same centiles as they were at birth - we did some weighing and measuring as part of some school stuff so I looked them up.

Dd1 is tall (around 95th centile) and skinny which makes her look taller, Dd2 is just over average and very skinny. Dd2 is known as 'tiny baby' by us cos in comparison to dd1 she is a dot but this baffles others as seen by herself she looks quite tall.

My 6 year old dd is 20% for both height and weight. She was a huge baby but is now tiny compared to most of her school friends.

All of my children are tall.

91st for height and 9th for weight aged 6.
98th height and 98th weight aged 3.
98th height and 50th for weight aged 8.

I never really thought my 6 year old looked that much taller than his peers though, whereas my 3 and 8 year old look considerably taller than their classmates.

Kids in Britain are on the large side. DC are pretty average amongst their year groups at school. When we go to Australia though everybody is always commenting on how tall they are. Obviously you do get a degree of regional variation in the U.K. but certainly in areas like London/SE everyone seems quite tall.

If it's from the 80's, surely a new data is needed, 40 years later?