The purpose of these charts is to help keep a fairly basic guideline for parents and healthcare providers to ensure children are growing both in weight and height at a somewhat "normal" pace. This makes it much easier for healthcare workers to see where an individual is at compared to peers of their age, and it's accessible enough for parents to read them and reach them at any time. Throughout the weeks of this class up to this point, I have learned to be skeptical of the results of any graph or survey right away, and that seemed to prove true here as well. Looking at the CDC charts, I immediately thought of just simple genetic factors that weren't put into account for those results. When I started looking into Dr. Hall's charts, I realized I had even forgotten about race as a factor, which looked to be a significant factor in Dr. Hall's findings.

I also had no idea that the CDC charts were originally from 1977, and even now the latest data is from 2000. I don't believe most people looking at these charts would realize how outdated the information is at face value, and that could have troubling consequences for growing children of having their doctor and parents hold them to the standards of almost 25 years ago. A person is also unlikely to stay in the same percentile their whole lives because of factors such as puberty at different ages or genetics. This makes for additional problems occurring in the reading of the data to try and compare it to anyone who is not going to maintain their position in the mold.

What would be a good response to a discussion such as this?

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1/chart03.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1/chart07.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/set1/chart08.pdf