The purposes of this study were to construct height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) percentile charts of Maia county children, Portugal; to compare Maia county data with reference data from other Portuguese studies and from Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The sample comprises 3749 children (1942 boys and 1807 girls) aged six to 10 years. Charts were separately built for each sex using the LMS method. Maia children's height, weight, BMI and WC increase with age in linear and nonlinear fashions. Maia children showed consistently higher values in height, weight and BMI than the CDC references. WC modal trajectories of Maia Children are higher than other international studies. Differences in somatic variables are observed in distinctive locals and regions of Portugal.
Reference charts; Height; Weight; BMI; Waist circumference
