[A child's growth mirrors health and illness. Regular measurement of body height is an important diagnostic tool].

The growth of children is an important health indicator. In the individual child, growth mirrors health or illness. At the child population level, growth may be used to monitor living conditions. Continued deviations may indicate somatic disorders or psychosocial problems. The assessment of the growth of an individual child is complicated due to the difficulty to measure children. Thus, the height of the child will have to deviate substantially from that of the reference population before action is called for. The progress over time of the child's growth, on the other hand, is a much more sensitive indicator of ill health than is the height of the child at a certain age. Systematic assessment of each measuring may serve as an aid to detect abnormal growth and thereby facilitate a correct diagnosis.