Abstract

Human growth is a complex, natural developmental phenomenon comprised of prenatal (fetal) and postnatal (infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood) growth. Weight is an eco-sensitive growth measurement that responds more rapidly to illness and loss of appetite than height. Modelling postnatal growth in children’s weight is of particular interest in order to identify those at greatest risk for serious health outcomes later in adult life such as obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Traditionally, the most commonly used parametric growth models (Jenss-Bayley, Reed 1st order and Reed 2nd order) have been recommended for children from birth to 6 years of age but the literature on their performance in an older age range of children is limited. The Adapted Jenss-Bayley was developed to extend the models from birth to puberty. In contrast, the recently developed SITAR (SuperImposition by Translation And Rotation) model has no age range constraints, and has been shown to be superior to the previous models (Jenss-Bayley and Reed 1st order) for modeling weight from birth to four years of age. No study has yet assessed the comparison and performance of these models in an older age range of children. This present study aims to extend the previous work by comparing these models (Jenss-Bayley, Reed 1st order, Reed 2nd order, Adapted Jenss-Bayley, and SITAR) within the mixed effect framework to model longitudinal weight in an age range of children that starts from middle childhood and includes puberty (6 to 15 years) in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) cohort (n = 2, 120). Results demonstrate that the SITAR model outperformed the other four models but should be reassessed in additional studies with longer follow-up.