Introduction
Available at www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/
Welcome to the Growth Chart training website, which offers self-directed, interactive training courses for health care professionals who use the pediatric growth charts in clinical and public health settings to assess growth of infants, children, and teens.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend that US health care practitioners in primary care settings use:
In 2022, CDC released Extended BMI-for-Age Growth Charts for children and adolescents with severe obesity. Learn more about these changes.
- World Health Organization (WHO) growth standard charts to monitor the growth of children aged birth to 2 years regardless of type of feeding.
- 2000 CDC growth reference charts to monitor growth of children aged 2 to 20 years.
- 2022 CDC Extended Body Mass Index (BMI)-for-Age Growth Charts to monitor growth of children aged 2 to 20 years with very high BMIs (above the 97th percentile for sex and age).
Growth chart related computer programs include:
- SAS Program
- R Packages
This training provides US health care practitioners with expertise on using and interpreting the growth charts. Users can complete any or all of the training courses in the desired sequence, at no cost. Each course includes learning objectives, text, and examples. The training takes about 30 minutes to read, or about 40 minutes to read and complete the Test Your Knowledge sections.
The training courses include:
- Using the WHO Growth Charts to Assess Growth in the United States Among Children Aged Birth to 2 Years
Background for the recommendation and rationale for using the WHO growth charts to assess and interpret the growth of infants and children aged birth to 2 years. Includes examples to help interpret growth indicators. - Overview of the CDC Growth Charts
Background information on the 2000 CDC stature-for-age, weight-for-age, and BMI-for-age growth charts, as well as the 2022 CDC Extended BMI-for-Age Growth Charts, which are used to assess growth of US children and adolescents aged 2 to 20 years. - Using the CDC BMI-for-Age Growth Charts
Background information on how to use the 2000 BMI-for-Age Growth Charts and 2022 CDC Extended BMI-for-Age Growth Charts to assess and interpret growth among US children and teens aged 2 to 20 years.
Other Growth Chart Resources
- BMI Percentile Calculator for Child and Teen provided for both US and metric units.
- Clinical Growth Charts from the National Center for Health Statistics at CDC.
- Computer Programs includes R and SAS programs to calculate z-scores, percentiles, BMI metrics, and other indices from the CDC and WHO growth charts.
- CDC Extended BMI-for-age Growth Charts released in December 2022.