Tim J. Cole. ABSTRACT (partial): Background: The SITAR growth curve model with its three random effects is useful for summarising height growth in individuals and groups. However SITAR performs less well for weight which unlike height continues to change post-puberty.

Karen J. Low. ABSTRACT (partial): Health professionals measure and plot children’s growth at intervals on appropriate charts to track the trajectory against reference centiles. Many children with genetic disorders plot on an extreme centile—in itself a clue to a possible underlying genetic diagnosis. Once a genetic diagnosis is made, plotting on a standard chart may be misleading. It may, for example, suggest a child is of short stature and underweight when they are growing normally for their genetic disorder, leading to clinical/parental anxiety resulting in unnecessary investigation and unwarranted/ineffective intervention.

André Madsen. ABSTRACT (partial): Context: Testicular growth represents the best clinical variable to evaluate male puberty, but current pediatric hormone references are based on chronological age and subjective assessments of discrete puberty development stages. Determination of testicular volume (TV) by ultrasound provides a novel approach to assess puberty progression and stratify hormone reference intervals. Objective: The objective of this article is to establish references for serum testosterone and key hormones of the male pituitary-gonadal signaling pathway in relation to TV determined by ultrasound.

Ninnie Helen Bakken Oehme. ABSTRACT (partial): Aim: To estimate references for testicular volume measured with ultrasound and Tanner stages of pubic hair in Norwegian boys, and to compare the timing of puberty with data from similar populations.

Ingvild Særvold Bruserud. ABSTRACT (partial): Context: Discriminating adipose and glandular tissue is challenging when clinically assessing breast development. Ultrasound facilitates staging of pubertal breast maturation (US B), but has not been systematically compared to Tanner breast (Tanner B) staging, and no normative data have been reported. Objective: To present normative references for US B along with references for Tanner B, pubic hair (PH), and menarche.

Liv Guro Engen Hanem. ABSTRACT (partial): Background: Metformin is increasingly used to treat gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes in pregnancy, and in attempts to improve pregnancy outcomes in polycystic ovary syndrome and obesity. It passes across the placenta with possible long-term consequences for the offspring. We previously explored the effect of metformin, given to women with polycystic ovary syndrome during pregnancy, on children’s growth up to 4 years of age. In this 5–10 year follow-up, we examined the cardiometabolic risk factors in these children.

Øyvind Helgeland. ABSTRACT (partial): Infant and childhood growth are dynamic processes with large changes in BMI during development. By performing genome-wide association studies of BMI at 12 time points from birth to eight years (9286 children, 74,105 measurements) in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study, replicated in 5235 children, we identify a transient effect in the leptin receptor (LEPR) locus: no effect at birth, increasing effect in infancy, peaking at 6–12 months (rs2767486, P6m = 2.0 × 10−21, β6m = 0.16 sd-BMI), and little effect after age five.

Liv Guro Engen Hanem. ABSTRACT (partial): Context: Metformin is used in pregnancy in women with gestational diabetes mellitus, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and obesity. Metformin passes the placenta. Objective: To explore the effects of metformin use in PCOS pregnancies on offspring growth to 4 years of age.

Kari Glavin. ABSTRACT (partial): Background: Identifying important ages for the development of overweight is essential for optimizing preventive efforts. The purpose of the study was to explore early growth characteristics in children who become overweight or obese at the age of 8 years to identify important ages for the onset of overweight and obesity.

Petur B. Julıusson. ABSTRACT (partial): Background: Previous growth references for Norwegian children were based on measurements from the 1970s and 1980s. New reference data, collected through the Bergen Growth Study and the Medical Birth Registry of Norway, are presented as LMS values.

Petur B. Julıusson. ABSTRACT (partial): Background: New national growth references have been published in Belgium and Norway. The WHO recommends universal use of their 2006 Child Growth Standards based on data from breastfed children.

Petur B. Julıusson. ABSTRACT (partial): Aim: The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity and to identify socio-demographic risk factors in Norwegian children.

Lawrence M. Schell. ABSTRACT (partial): Context: Humans are now exposed to a multitude of chemicals throughout the life course, some of which may affect growth and development owing to their endocrine-like activity.

Babette S. Zemel. ABSTRACT (partial): Growth measurements are largely uninterpretable without comparison to a growth chart. Consequently, the characteristics of a growth chart become an integral component of the interpretation of growth measurements. The concepts of optimal growth and tempo are well recognised by auxologists, yet their implications for interpretation of growth measurements remain problematic.

P. van Dommelen. ABSTRACT (partial): Aim: To develop a guideline for preventive child healthcare professionals in order to improve early detection of pathological disorders associated with short stature (or growth faltering) or tall stature (or accelerated growth).

TJ Cole. ABSTRACT (partial): Reference centile curves show the distribution of a measurement as it changes according to some covariate, often age. The LMS method summarizes the changing distribution by three curves representing the median, coefficient of variation and skewness, the latter expressed as a Box-Cox power.

TJ Cole. ABSTRACT (partial): Objective: To develop an internationally acceptable definition of child overweight and obesity, specifying the measurement, the reference population, and the age and sex specific cut off points.

TJ Cole. ABSTRACT (partial): Background: Growth curve analysis is a statistical issue in life course epidemi- ology. Height in puberty involves a growth spurt, the timing and intensity of which varies between individuals. Such data can be summarized with individual Preece–Baines (PB) curves, and their five parameters then related to earlier exposures or later outcomes. But it involves fitting many curves

TJ Cole. ABSTRACT (partial): Growth reference centile charts are widely used in child health to assess weight, height and other age-varying measure- ments. The centiles are easy to construct from reference data, using the LMS method or GAMLSS (Generalised Additive Models for Location Scale and Shape). However, there is as yet no clear guidance on how to design such studies, and in particular how many reference data to collect, and this has led to study sizes varying widely.