Body Mass Index Growth Curves for Birth to 24 Months Children in Ankara with RefCurv Software

BACKGROUND: It is important to monitor the development of infants and children during their growth period. Various anthropometric parameters of children are measured at regular intervals after birth, and their general health and nutrition and physiological needs are assessed based on these measurements. AIMS: To construct the current body mass index (BMI) percentiles and compare them with the literature reports and World Health Organisation (WHO) data. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. METHODS: This study is a cross-sectional research on 1,345 boys and 1,364 girls of age ranging from 0 to 24 months; their BMIs were measured at the Başkent University Hospital from January 2018-December 2021. The BMI growth curves for either gender were constructed according to the LMS method by using RefCurv 0.4.2. software. The “gamlss” package was employed for the selection of model parameters in fitting the BMI growth curves, and the model performance was evaluated with reference to the generalized Akaike information criterion (GAIC). RESULTS: According to gender, smoothed BMI growth curves were constructed in the 3(rd)-97(th) percentiles. The model adequacy of the fitted growth curves was evaluated with the worm plot. The fit of the BMI model to the data was found to be sufficient, with 95% of the BMI values occurring between two elliptic curves. CONCLUSION: The study shows a slight increase in BMI percentile values obtained by gender compared to WHO standards.