Underweight Children Cancel Title is required

I have been sponsoring Isaura for over 3 years now and she has always been a thin child. I looked again at her family record to see her height and weight, and she is 5'4" and weighs only 103lbs. To be sure I entered her data into the BMI and she is definitely inderweight. Could this be a malnourisment issue or could she just be a naturally thin girl. I will call in the morning to ask. In the meantime, do any of you have children who are underweight?

If you used a BMI calculator for children/teens and not adults, her being underweight would be cause for concern (the further underweight, the more concern obviously). Calculators for children and teens will return a different result based on age and sex and adult calculators shouldn't be used as they will frequently say a child is underweight when they're fine. For example, an adult BMI calculator says Crismairy is significantly underweight for her height, but using a child calculator, she's at the 21st percentile and considered to be at a healthy weight. Under 5th percentile is underweight for a child/teen. Here's a good one if you did use an adult calculator before:

http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/dnpabmi/Calculator.aspx?CalculatorType=English

Having said that, poor Lovely May is below the 1st percentile for her age and height and the CDC site says she should be seen immediately by a health care specialist to determine why she's so severely underweight . . . which makes me think I may need to request a health report on her ASAP.

All the rest of my children are of healthy weights for their age, gender and height.

Thank you for this! Using this one, she is in the 9th percentile and is a healthy weight. That's a big relief.

I'm sorry to hear about your little girl. I would assume CI would have already noticed this and taken action. However you know what they say about people who assume....I'd definitely call or email to see what was going on.

Best of luck and thanks again! Keep us updated

So happy to know she is a healthy weight! It may not hurt to check it for future years since she is on the low end of normal at 9th percentile. If she stays around 9th, she's probably just naturally thin. If she starts to grow and her percentile drops, she may not be getting enough food to support a growth spurt (which may be what has happened with Lovely May).

I think CI may have noticed since they told me that Lovely May did have a recent medical check up. Either that or she goes by choice even though it isn't mandatory. I'm sure CI is doing whatever they can; however, I did inquire about a copy of the medical report because I know the medical emergency funds are limited. I remember there was a child who was severely malnurished due to a health condition and the sponsor did a fundraiser to provide special foods the child needed. I assumed it was a case where the feeding program didn't/couldn't offer the special diet the child needed? On the off chance that there is an issue going on that can't be addressed by the feeding program/medical fund, I'd like to know if she needs something more than just a few SNGs to get that girl some food!

My mom's Neha of India is 4'4", 53 lbs--and 13 years old. Surely that's not normal?

For comparison, my mom's Mirna of Guatemala weighs 77 pounds, at 11 years old.

Wow. There is no way a 13 year old should only weigh 53 pounds! She should be around 90 at least an I would even coinsider that small. She doesn't look severly malnourished but I'm also not a doctor. Have you asked about that?

Isa's reports have actually varied alot. At one point they said she was 5'8. Then they dropped to 4''11. Now they have her listed at 5'11 which seems to be the most accurate. Hopefully that's what happened for your child because there is no way a 53lbd teen would not raise red flags. Maybe it's a conversion issue

Richard is 4 yrs old and 32 lbs, 3 ft 1 in In 75th percentile weight to height according to the chart.

According to a different English/American chart http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/usefultools/l/bl_kids_centils.htm, he is shorter and thinner than most kids his age with his height in <3rd percentile and weight is 15th. But I guess that 75 comes from the height/weight ratio together not sure.

@Jess, the tool I posted combines not just height and weight, but also age and gender to determine the "norms" for all 4 characteristics. So, 75th percentile would mean that for male children of the same age and height (other children who are also short for their age), he falls in the 75th percentile for weight.

Sorry, I did not see this post yesterday. I know everyone is concerned about their children, but I do want to mention that the BMI calculator link that was posted is from the CDC and is based on U.S. standards.

CI uses the BMI calculator from the World Health Organization (WHO), which is a global calculator. This means it takes into account the differences in countries. In addition to using the BMI chart, our medical staff also takes into consideration the family, typical diet for the region and other factors in determining if a child is below weight or malnourished.

This is the type of information CI tracks very closely and one reason why children age 2-12 are given a annual health exam. Any child who falls below a certain percentage (it varies by region) is enrolled in our nutritional program.

So, for some of you who are concerned that your child's percentile is low on the CDC's BMI chart, be aware that it is not the chart that CI uses and that if your child is truly below standards for their country, they are receiving the help they need

Thanks Debbie! I think we forrget to take into account that different regions have different standards of normal

Thanks Debbie! All of my young children look healthy. I only worry about the older ones because they don't necessarily have to do the annual exam. I know a lot of children thin when they go through a growth spurt and then fill out as well. Having a calculator by country is smart.

Thanks, debbie, that's reassuring! I wonder if we could see that calculator by country?

@brooke_or: Well, one of reasons we don't do required annual exams for teens is because most countries don't require it for all teens (girls really need it more than boys) and, BIG SURPRISE here, teens don't want to go.

We actually have some teens who refuse to go when a sponsor requests a Health Report for them and have said they'd rather drop from the program than go and even if they do, they balk at sharing the info with their sponsor. It's embarrassing and they see it as an invasion of their privacy. It's the age old struggle called teenagers

@brightspot: I'm sure if you pull up the WHO's website you can locate the calculator.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if a teen refused. I asked about my kids once, but I think I had all young children then. I did inquire about Lovely, but I know she had a health check up already even though she's over 12. With my other teens, I just encourage them to still be seen since preventative care is so critical.

Thanks for all the info though!