• Uri Gabbay, Doron Carmi, Aviva Mimouni-Blich, Bat El Goldstein, Lital Keinan-Boker, and Joseph Meyerovitch.
• Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Isr Med Assoc J. 2021 Apr 1; 23 (4): 233-238.

BackgroundEvaluation of children's anthropometrics poses challenges due to age-related changes. The main focus is on height and weight. However, since weight is height-dependent, body mass index (BMI) is the best surrogate measurement of adiposity. Israel has not developed national growth tables; therefore, researchers and clinicians utilize either World Health Organization (WHO) or U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tables as benchmarks.ObjectivesTo evaluate the anthropometrics of Israeli children benchmarked by CDC and WHO tables.MethodsA retrospective review was conducted of the 1987-2003 birth cohort (age 4-18 years) from Clalit Health Services databases. Anthropometrics were retrieved twice: at study entry and one year later. We evaluated them as separate cohorts. Gender-specific age-matched median height and BMI were compared with CDC and WHO height and BMI tables.Resultshe study consisted of 15,650, mean age at study entry 9.5 years (range 4-18). Gender-specific median heights of the Israeli children were similar to CDC and WHO values at younger ages, but were slightly shorter than the age-matched CDC and WHO toward the age of final height in both cohorts. However, gender-specific median BMI was considerably and statistically significant higher compared to CDC and WHO values consistently along the entire age range in both cohorts.ConclusionsIsraeli children were slightly shorter toward the age of final height, compared to WHO and CDC. However, BMI in Israeli children was significantly higher compared to the CDC and WHO consistently along the age range, which raises an alarm regarding obesity patterns.

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