Assessment of Nutritional Status in Emergency-Affected Populations - Adolescents













Table of Contents


July 2000

Bradley A. Woodruff & Arabella Duffield

This report is issued on the general responsibility of the Secretariat of the UN ACC/Sub-Committee on Nutrition; the material it contains should not be regarded as necessarily endorsed by, or reflecting the official position of the ACC/SCN and its UN member agencies. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the ACC/SCN or its UN member agencies concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

This report was written by:
Bradley A. Woodruff, International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch, U.S.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Arabella Duffield, ACC/SCN Secretariat

We are grateful to the following reviewers for their comments:

Monika Blösnner (WHO), Tim Cole (Institute of Child Health), Mary Corbett (Concern), Mercedes de Onis (WHO), Mike Golden (University of Aberdeen), Saskia van der Kam (Médecins Sans Frontières), Carlos Navarro-Colorado (Action Contre La Faim), Nick Norgan (University of Loughborough), Claudine Prudhon (Action Contre La Faim), Simon Strickland (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Stanley Ulijaszek (Oxford University).


If you would like to request any of the ACC/Sub-Committee on Nutrition's publications please contact:

ACC/Sub-Committee on Nutrition, 20, avenue Appia, 1211 Geneva 27, SWITZERLAND
Tel: +(41 22) 791 04 56, Fax: +(41 22) 798 88 91, E-mail: accscn@who.int,
Web: http://acc.unsystem.org/scn/

If you have any enquiries about this supplement please contact either the ACC/SCN or:

Bradley Woodruff, International Emergency Refugee Health Branch, U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop F-48, 4770 Buford Highway, Atlanta, Georgia 30341, U.S.A
E-mail: baw4@cdc.gov

Funding support is gratefully acknowledged from CIDA, DFA (Ireland), NORAD, DFID (UK), UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP.

This report was made possible through the support provided by the Food and Nutrition Assistance (FANta) Project by the Office of Health and Nutrition Bureau for Global Programs, Field Support and Research at the U.S. Agency for International Development, under the terms of Cooperative Agreement No. HNE-A-00-98-00046-00 awarded to the Academy for Educational Development (AED). The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development.


Table of Contents


Summary

Introduction

Background on anthropometry

Current WHO recommendations for adolescent anthropometry

Description of WHO recommendations
Application of the WHO recommendations

Complications of adolescent anthropometry

Changes in body proportions with age
Pubertal development
Interethnic differences in body size and shape

Which anthropometric index?

Weight-for-height measures

Theoretical problems with indices using weight and height
Practical problems with indices using weight and height

MUAC

Theoretical problems with the use of MUAC
Practical problems with the use of MUAC

Possible solutions for the future

Changes in body proportions with age
Pubertal development
Inter-ethnic differences in genetic growth potential
Use of other data

Future research needs

Conclusions and recommendations

References

ANNEX 1. Median and 70% of median weights for various heights, for males and female adolescents. Data from Michael Golden.

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