Imagine this scenario: A primary care pediatrician has been following a 10-year-old female with an initial body mass index (BMI)-for-age of 36 with monthly visits for the past 6 months. The patient and family have worked hard to make and sustain healthy lifestyle changes, and want to see how her growth has changed. The pediatrician wants to view her weight change in the context of her height change and BMI norms for her age. The pediatrician pulls up the 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) growth charts in the electronic health record and has no easily explainable data to share with the family.

The brief report by Ogden et al in this issue of Pediatrics provides welcomed insight for pediatric health care providers caring for the nearly 6% of US youth with severe obesity. Before the recent release of the CDC extended BMI-for-age growth charts, Gulati...

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