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Objectives: The association between body height and social status is known. We were interested in the effect of intergeneration changes in social status on height., Methods: Body height was measured in 2008 paternal grandfather-father-son and 1803 paternal grandfather-father-daughter triplets. The sample consisted of four child cohorts born in 1988, 1985, 1983, and 1980, and was measured annually from 6 to 11, 9 to 14, 11 to 16, and 14 to 18 years of age. Triplets were dichotomized according to grandfathers' occupation, into one "lower" and one "upper" grandparental class; and according to paternal education, into one "lower" and "upper" paternal class, resulting in four "family histories": two nonmobile (grandfathers and fathers stayed in the same social class), and two mobile histories (social class of fathers and grandfathers differed)., Results: "Upper" class fathers are taller than "lower" class fathers. This class effect on height persists into the third generation. Upward social mobility ("lower" class fathers receive secondary or university education) results in taller stature both in the fathers and in the children. The opposite applies for downward social mobility. "Upper" class fathers with only basic or vocational education lose the social advantage and remain shorter. So do their children., Conclusions: The class effect on height tends to persist into the next generation, but depends on education. Upward social mobility measured as a "better" education, results in taller stature, up to the third generation. The study highlights the importance of education as a major regulator of body height., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Aim: To scrutinize to what extent modern ideas about nutrition effects on growth are supported by historic observations in European populations., Method: We reviewed 19th and early 20th century paediatric journals in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the third largest European library with an almost complete collection of the German medical literature. During a three-day visit, we inspected 15 bookshelf meters of literature not available in electronic format., Results: Late 19th and early 20th century breastfed European infants and children, independent of social strata, grew far below World Health Organisation (WHO) standards and 15-30% of adequately-fed children would be classified as stunted by the WHO standards. Historic sources indicate that growth in height is largely independent of the extent and nature of the diet. Height catch-up after starvation was greater than catch-up reported in modern nutrition intervention studies, and allowed for unimpaired adult height., Conclusion: Historical studies are indispensable to understand why stunting does not equate with undernutrition and why modern diet interventions frequently fail to prevent stunting. Appropriateness and effect size of modern nutrition interventions on growth need revision., (©2018 Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Under normal nutritional and health conditions, body height, weight and head circumference are significantly related. We hypothesize that the apparent general association between weight, height, and head circumference of the growing child might be misleading., Methods: We reanalyzed data of 7,444 boys and 7,375 girls measured in East-Germany between 1986 and 1990, aged from 0 to 7 y with measurements of body length/height, leg length, sitting height, biacromial shoulder breadth, thoracic breadth, thoracic depth, thoracic circumference, body weight, head volume, percentage of body fat, and hip skinfold vertical, using principal component analysis., Results: Strong associations exist between skeletal growth, fat accumulation, and head volume increments. Yet in spite of this general proportionality, skeletal growth, fat acquisition, and head growth exhibit different patterns. Three components explain between almost 60% and more than 75% of cumulative variance between birth and age 7 y. Parameters of skeletal growth predominantly load on the first component and clearly separate from indicators of fat deposition. After age of 2 y, head volume loads on a separate third component in both sexes indicating independence of head growth., Conclusion: Under appropriate nutritional and health circumstances, nutritional status, body size, and head circumference are not related.

Aim: National European growth references differ. We aimed to convert (harmonize) currently used charts into a single unified interchangeable LMS format for each European nation., Methods: Nine currently used national European growth references from Belgium (2009), France (1979), Poland (2001), Sweden (2002), Switzerland (1989), the UK (1990), Italy (2006) and Germany (1979 and 1997) were harmonized and compared with the international WHO child growth standards and WHO growth reference data for 5-19 years., Results: European growth charts can be harmonized. The approach appears useful as height, and body mass index (BMI) is inappropriately represented by WHO references. European height references exhibit warping when plotted against the WHO reference. The French appears too short, the other Europeans too tall. Also, the BMI is not appropriately represented by the WHO references., Conclusions: Harmonizing references is a novel, convenient and cost-effective approach for converting historic and/or incomplete local or national growth reference charts into a unified interchangeable LMS format. Harmonizing facilitates producing growth references 'on demand', for limited regional purposes, for ethnically, socio-economically or politically defined minorities, but also for matching geographically different groups of children and adolescents for international growth and registry studies., (© 2011 The Author(s)/Acta Paediatrica © 2011 Foundation Acta Paediatrica.)

Growth is defined as an increase of size over time with time usually defined as physical time. Yet, the rigid metric of physical time is not directly relevant to the internal dynamics of growth. Growth is linked to maturation. Children and adolescents differ in the tempo at which they mature. One calendar year differs in its meaning in a fast maturing, and in a slow maturing child. The slow child needs more calendar years for completing the same stage of maturity. Many characteristics in the human growth curve are tempo characteristics. Tempo - being fast or slow maturing - has to be carefully separated from amplitude - being tall or short. Several characteristic phenomena such as catch-up growth after periods of illness and starvation are largely tempo phenomena, and do usually not affect the amplitude component of growth. Applying Functional Data Analysis and Principal Component Analysis, the two main sources of height variance: tempo and amplitude can statistically be separate and quantified. Tempo appears to be more sensitive than amplitude to nutrition, health and environmental stress. An appropriate analysis of growth requires disentangling its two major components: amplitude and tempo. The assessment of the developmental tempo thus is an integral part of assessing child and adolescent growth. Though an Internet portal is currently available to process small amounts of height data (www.willi-will-wachsen.com) for separately determining amplitude and tempo in growth, there is urgent need of better and practical solutions for analyzing individual growth.

Child growth is characterised by increases in height, and increases in maturational status. Functional data analysis provides a tool to separate these two sources of variation (registration) and differentiates between the variation in maturational tempo (temporal, or “phase” variation) and the variation in height (amplitude variation). We extended this concept by combining Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the Maximum Likelihood Principle. Longitudinal data on height were obtained from two large growth studies from Lublin, Poland, and Zurich, Switzerland, with altogether 361 children. Variation in amplitude monotonically rises with age; variation in phase peaks during puberty. During mid-puberty, phase variation is large and explains up to 40 percent of total height variance in girls, and up to 50 percent in boys. Eight amplitude and 4 phase components appeared biologically significant. The largest amplitude component explained 91% of the amplitude variance and is characterised by an almost horizontal pattern. The largest phase component explained 66% (boys) and 63% (girls) of phase variance, rises throughout childhood and reaches up to 0.85 years in adolescent boys, and up to 0.75 years in adolescent girls. Phase components significantly correlated with the clinical signs of puberty. The combination of PCA and the Maximum Likelihood Principle provides a new, powerful and automatic tool for growth modelling that includes estimates of future growth, adult stature and developmental tempo. Preliminary results indicate that this approach can be used for automatised screening purposes.

Background: Information on the effect of variability in maturational tempo on variability in height attained at the same age is not readily available., Aim: The study obtained this information from the data of the First Zurich Longitudinal Study., Subjects and Methods: Yearly measurements of standing height, sitting height and leg length, yearly assessments of bone age (RUS (Radius, Ulna and Short bones), TW3 method) and midparent height for 232 children from the First Zurich Longitudinal Growth Study are included in a correlational analysis., Results: The course of the squared correlations of standing height, sitting height and leg length with attained RUS bone age, midparent height and both as a function of age are presented., Conclusions: During puberty, up to 50% of the height variation in boys and 40% in girls is explained by maturational tempo.

Many disorders of child development can only be treated successfully when they are detected early. Thus, child development should be checked periodically. Usually, a few parameters are sufficient to check whether or not a child is developing normally in terms of growth. By making such checks publicly available on the website: willi-will-wachsen.de the authors hope to provide a tool which helps the automatization of simple check procedures and thereby detect with less effort more children with growth disorders.

The study of human growth is traditionally based on investigations of body height. Differences of height which significantly surpass the technical error of the measuring device then by definition represent growth. However, this definition proved to be unsatisfying if applied to changes of body stature within very short time intervals. We have measured 73 healthy children, aged between 2.9 and 15.9 years, for periods of 180 to 306 days once or twice weekly, and 23 healthy children of similar ages for periods of 3 months, 4 to 5 times per week. The individual series of lower leg length measurements (technical error 160 microns) were analyzed by a smoothing procedure yielding mean daily lower leg growth rates. The series of almost daily measurements were additionally analyzed in order to find periodic elements. In the case of weekly measurements, marked periodic changes of mean daily lower leg growth rates were found with sharp growth spurts once every 30 to 55 days. Additional investigations of the series of almost daily lower leg length measurements showed evidence that the above periodic changes of growth rate were caused by aliasing between shorter periods overlapping each other and the exact 7-day intervals of measurements. We found a number of dominant periods particularly at 7 to 9-day intervals.

Many disorders of child development can only be treated successfully when they are detected early. Thus, child development should be checked periodically. Usually, a few parameters are sufficient to check whether or not a child is developing normally in terms of growth. By making such checks publicly available on the website: willi-will-wachsen.de the authors hope to provide a tool which helps the automatisation of simple check procedures and thereby detect with less effort more children with growth disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]