I haven't checked the methods section of the WHO growth charts yet, but I have to say that there was never any evidence to support the notion that Asian babies grow any differently than babies anywhere else. The ONLY population wide minor difference that was ever seen to persist and was unexplainable by nutrition was a 0.5 cm difference in height (I believe it was at age five) among South East Asians compared to other populations. This was HEIGHT, not WEIGHT. I think there was also a slight difference in chest circumference among Andian populations that didn't go away when they moved and grew up in low altitudes. Not sure if this was thoroughly researched. Thus, there is the notion that there may have been enough time for populations in the Andes to have undergone some real genetic adaptations to a larger chest to survive the lower oxygen levels. If you go through the Lactnet archives, Kathy Dettwyler did a critique of the WHO chart methodology. The gist that I remember, and she can correct my faulty memory if I got it wrong, was that the charts narrowed the weight range. Infants who were ill were not in the group. The groups contained infants from places like UC Davis where sleep training and scheduled feedings may have tinkered with the top end of the spectrum of potential growth. LONG BEFORE the WHO growth charts it was a well known unofficially accepted idea that breastfed babies typically grew better in weight initially and then slowed faster among the nutrition graduate students at Cornell. We factored that into our interpretations. So, the WHO growth charts fit my preconceived notions of normally growing breastfed infants. If growth is used properly as an indicator -- the actual lines are not all that important. Even the old charts could be used appropriately to explore the feeding patterns and evaluation interventions and not used to DIAGNOSE. The key word is to EXPLORE the factors influencing feeding and see if something is out of balance. The amount of work and dollars needed to construct growth charts is high. These are multicountry studies over a long period of time with sophisticated techniques needed to deal with longitudinal data. I think anytime someone feels research needs to be improved, we should be writing to our politicians or donating money to research on infant feeding. Best, Susan Burger *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html To reach list owners: [log in to unmask] Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask] COMMANDS: 1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail 2. To start it again: set lactnet mail 3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet 4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome