Secular trend in growth and nutritional status in a sample of girls aged 7-9 years from Serbia.

Secular trend changes over time and therefore is a marker of the public health of the populations. The aim of the study is to compare the anthropometric data of 7-9 year-old girls obtained in recent investigations in Serbia with data from 1980/81, by using Z-score and percentile classification systems, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC anthropometric criteria. In 1980 and 1981 we used data for 800 schoolgirls aged 6.50-9.49 years. The data for the period 2011-2016 were obtained from recently conducted field investigations in certain parts of the Vojvodina region and from the East and Central Serbia. In total, 1313 girls were included in both investigations. Mean Z-score values for height-for-age, weight-for-age and BMI-for-age in the present sample were compared with the corresponding values for the period 1980/81, and also compared with the reference. The results show that nutritional status Z-scores indicate similar mean values in both investigations. The secular trend of height has slowed down, but the percentage of girls with normal weight is considerably lower in the second investigation. The results indicate that nutritional problems are more common among present generation of girls. Both the problems of underweight and overweight in girls aged 7-9 have to be addressed.