Pediatricians use the charts to compare children the same age to one another.
If they use the new data, a heavy child may look fine on paper only because the child's peers are also fat. So federal health authorities have decided that as they re-configure the charts, they're going to throw out the most recent weight data. The government has decided to use only weight data gathered before 1988, the date children age 6 and older started to become markedly heavier. Before 1988, about 6 percent of less of American children ages 6 through 17 were overweight. Since then, the number has jumped to about 11 percent of all children.