Child growth percentile

[Dr. N Elham]

While indicating the growth of children, the notes frequently mentions malnutrition or relevant conditions that the child is below 95 percentile of growth. What does this ninety five percentile mean? Perhapse it may not be necessary for USMLE, however, I would like to know about it because I can't learn about something that I don't know about.

[Sabio]

Children growth and weight can assessed by a variety of growth charts. Commonly used is the weight for age chart which categorizes kids by percentiles.

However, the CDC and the AAP have recommended the use of BMI centiles to assess the child weight.

A child who's BMI centile is above 95th percentile is considered obese, 85-95 is considered overweight and below the 5th the kid is definitely underweight.

So if you've been reading sentences that says below the 95th centile then they want to tell you that the child is not obese.

I've attached for you with this post an education children BMI chart hope it helps.