HEIGHT-WEIGHT-AGE TABLES FOR CHILDREN

The relationship of weight at given ages and heights to nutrition, and its significance as an index of the general health of the child, have long been of interest to medical investigators. Public health workers have made extensive use of height-weight tables as a screening method to detect at least the most severe grades of undernourishment. The common use of the height-weight tables has so popularized weight that an industry of no mean proportions has developed in the weighing of human beings. It is reported that the largest return on any investment at the Century of Progress Exposition is that of the "guess your weight" scales. The erroneous impression expressed in the current phrase "your weight indicates your health" is evidence of the extent to which this idea has been established with the public. Actually, normal weight does not necessarily mean good health; nor do deviations from the average or