Height and weight status of Indochinese refugee children. An anthropometric study of 1,650 children
K. Olness, R. Yip, A. Indritz and E. Torjesen
To provide guidelines for assessing growth status of Indochinese refugee
children, height and weight measurements were obtained from 1,650 children
residing in Lao refugee camps, Cambodian refugee camps, and surrounding
Thai villages. These are compared with the few existing growth references
for Asian children. In comparison to US growth standards (National Center
for Health Statistics/Centers for Disease Control) for children, the mean
weight for age and mean height for age of the studied groups are
approximately 2 SDs below US means. Weight for height is 0.7 SD below US
means. This marked difference in growth status appears to be due to
nutritional factors related more to cultural or economic issues affecting
these children than to their genetic background. The US growth standards
can serve as reference tools in evaluating the growth status of newly
arrived Southeast Asian children, if used with the perspective that
Southeast Asian children, on a group basis, have different distributions on
US growth curves.
