Recommendations of the Latin American Society of Pediatric Endocrinology on the clinical and auxological evaluation of growth

Growth is a continuous biological phenomenon resulting from the balance between the quantity, quality and function of matter, which allows the gradual acquisition of a stable conformation and a mature performance, which must be expressed fully and optimally in all humans. Its expression must be considered a sign of health and therefore must be analyzed by all doctors in the monitoring of each patient from birth to the end of puberty, since being an objective indicator allows us to quantify and qualify the variations in physical dimensions and body composition at different ages, and reflects the balance between the expression of genetic conditions and the permissive or restrictive factors of the environment. The most advisable method is to compare the auxological measurements of a population with the individual expression, although it must be considered that population studies indicate only what is “usual” in a population, which is not necessarily synonymous with normal or optimal, since: men and women show differences in the age and intensity of growth, prenatal growth can affect postnatal growth, there are ethnic or racial variations in the expression of postnatal growth, there are variations between families of the same ethnicity in postnatal growth, and there are variations in the speed of maturation even within members of the same family. The main anthropometric measurements are described, the characteristics of the instruments that quantify them and how the result should be analyzed.