关键词: 追踪研究, 儿童青少年, 生长发育

Abstract: Objective Physical development of children and adolescents always attracts widespread attention in society.Decisions for policy making and planning in public health must be based on accurate anthropometric informations about the population. Methods With a longitudinal study design,physical growth were continuously monitored in 933 pupils of Dalian,China,from 2004 to 2009.Height,weight and BMI were transformed into Z-scores relative to the WHO 2007 with respect to gender and exact age.All analyses were conducted with SAS 9.0 for Windows. Results The average height and weight for children of 7~12 years old in Dalian were higher than the WHO 2007 references.BMI Z-scores for boys were significantly greater than the WHO 2007 references,whereas BMI Z-scores for girls were close to or lower than the WHO 2007 references. Conclusion The trends of growth and development among boys and girls of 7~12 years old in Dalian showed different trends from the world average as compared to the WHO references.Height,weight and BMI Z-scores were generally greater than the WHO standards.The major reasons for the differences may be due to rapid socioeconomic development and improvements in nutrition and living conditions.Our findings suggest the necessity of taking effective measures to curb childhood obesity,especially in boys.

Key words: longitudinal study, children and adolescents, growth and development