Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Feb;92(2):109-14.
doi: 10.1136/adc.2005.080333. Epub 2006 Mar 10.

Failure to thrive: the prevalence and concurrence of anthropometric criteria in a general infant population

E M Olsen  1 , J Petersen, A M Skovgaard, B Weile, T Jørgensen, C M Wright
Affiliations

Failure to thrive: the prevalence and concurrence of anthropometric criteria in a general infant population

E M Olsen et al. Arch Dis Child. 2007 Feb.

Abstract

Background: Failure to thrive (FTT) in early childhood is associated with subsequent developmental delay and is recognised to reflect relative undernutrition. Although the concept of FTT is widely used, no consensus exists regarding a specific definition, and it is unclear to what extent different anthropometric definitions concur.

Objective: To compare the prevalence and concurrence of different anthropometric criteria for FTT and test the sensitivity and positive predictive values of these in detecting children with "significant undernutrition", defined as the combination of slow conditional weight gain and low body mass index (BMI).

Methods: Seven criteria of FTT, including low weight for age, low BMI, low conditional weight gain and Waterlow's criterion for wasting, were applied to a birth cohort of 6090 Danish infants. The criteria were compared in two age groups: 2-6 and 6-11 months of life.

Results: 27% of infants met one or more criteria in at least one of the two age groups. The concurrence among the criteria was generally poor, with most children identified by only one criterion. Positive predictive values of different criteria ranged from 1% to 58%. Most single criteria identified either less than half the cases of significant undernutrition (found in 3%) or included far too many, thus having a low positive predictive value. Children with low weight for height tended to be relatively tall.

Conclusions: No single measurement on its own seems to be adequate for identifying nutritional growth delay. Further longitudinal population studies are needed to investigate the discriminating power of different criteria in detecting significant undernutrition and subsequent outcomes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Comment in

References

    1. Benoit D. Feeding disorders, failure to thrive, and obesity. In: Zeanah CH, ed. New York: Guilford Press. Handbook of infant mental health 2000339–352.
    1. Bauchner H. Failure to thrive. In: Behrman RE, Kliegman RM, Jenson HB, eds. Nelson textbook of pediatrics. Philadelphia: Saunders, 2003133–134.
    1. Corbett S S, Drewett R F. To what extent is failure to thrive in infancy associated with poorer cognitive development? A review and meta‐analysis. J Child Psychol Psychiatr 200445641–654. - PubMed
    1. Kessler D B, Dawson P.Failure to thrive and pediatric undernutrition—a transdisciplinary approach. Baltimore, MD: Paul H, Brookes Publishing 1999
    1. Wilcox W D, Nieburg P, Miller D S. Failure to thrive: a continuing problem of definiton. Clin Pediatr 198928391–394. - PubMed

Publication types