ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1547581
The Development of National Growth Charts for Jordanian Children Aged 0-2 Years
Provisionally accepted
- 1Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
- 2Al Ain University, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- 3Teesside University, Middlesbrough, England, United Kingdom
- 4King Saud University, Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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Purpose: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of underweight, overweight, and obesity among Jordanian infants aged 0-2 years, establish national growth reference charts, and compare the growth of Jordanian infants with the WHO growth standards.Methods: The present study analyzed 260,027 anthropometric measurements derived from 82,874 healthy Jordanian children (51% boys) aged 0 to 24 months. These measurements included both cross-sectional and repeated entries, with each child contributing between one visit and nine followup visits (10 measurements). Weight and height measurements were analyzed using the Generalized Additive Models for Location Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) statistical method to develop the growth charts.Results: Separate models for height-for-age, weight-for-age, and weight-for-height were constructed for each gender. Significant discrepancies were found between WHO growth references and the Jordanian references. Children in Jordan were shorter, particularly among girls, and had slightly higher weight-for-age from the age of 7 months onward.The availability of Jordanian-specific growth references will improve the accuracy of assessing children's growth and enhance the monitoring and evaluation of their health and development.
Keywords: Weight-for-height, Growth Charts, height-for-age, Jordan, weight-for-age
Received: 18 Dec 2024; Accepted: 28 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Al-Qerem, Bataineh, Jarab, Eberhardt, Alasmari and Hammad. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Walid Al-Qerem, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
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