» For children and teenagers under 5 years old, please consult:
Our file on the ideal size of the child from birth to 5 years old
» For women over the age of 19, please consult:
Our file on the ideal size for a woman
Attention, if you were looking for the calculation of the BMI (Body Mass Index) to monitor the corpulence of a child or a teenager, then you are not on the right page, you must go to the calculation page of the BMI of children and adolescents .
The “ theoretical ideal height ” of a child is actually measured according to standards and statistics provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). These standards aim to detect abnormalities in children, as well as to monitor the growth of the child until he is 19 years old.
It is therefore on the latest standards of the World Health Organization (1) that this dossier is based. The latest WHO standards, which date from 2007 (and are currently the most recent) are themselves based on 1977 references developed by the Center for National Health Statistics (NCHS) as well as by WHO.
The curves go up to the age of 19, because it is at this age that the World Health Organization considers the upper age limit of adolescence (1) .
IDEAL SIZE FOR GIRL AGED 5 TO 19
How to use the curve correctly? It is enough simply to place a point on the curve ( do not hesitate to download it for that, you will have a better precision) according to the age and the size.
For example, for a 12-year-old girl measuring 150 centimeters, the size is quite normal (close to the green line). If the height had been 140 centimeters for the same age, then this 12-year-old girl would have been, statistically, among the 15% shortest girls of that age. This is what the “ percentiles ” corresponding to the different curve colors mean.
Another example . A 7-year-old girl measuring 110 centimeters is statistically among the shortest 3% of girls.
Download this curve to your computer:
- In PDF Format
- Or in image format: Very large size
IDEAL SIZE FOR BOY FROM 5 TO 19 YEARS
The point is placed exactly the same way as on the curve used by girls: it is necessary to place the point according to height and according to age. For example, a 15-year-old boy measuring 170 centimeters will be quite normal. On the other hand, a 17-year-old boy measuring 160 centimeters will be among the 3% of the shortest boys for his age. If this child, at the same age (17), was 185 centimeters tall, then he would have been among the 15% tallest boys for his age.
Download this curve to your computer:
- In PDF Format
- Or in image format: Very large size
OVER 19 YEARS
The subject is then different beyond 19 years. Growth monitoring is often no longer desired, for the simple reason that adolescence has come to an end. It is very often the ideal size that is sought, but more for aesthetic notions than for purely medical notions. This is why we have devoted an entire file to the ideal size for women.