en public specific orginal article Background: Application of growth indicators taken from other countries can cause misdiagnosis of underweight and stunting. In this study we compared the trend of anthropometric growth indicators between the elementary school students of Yazd with the international standards. Methods: The study population of this retrospective cohort study consisted of 591 primary school children in Yazd (285 girls and 306 boys) who were selected by multistage random sampling. The studied indicators were physical growth height, weight and body mass index (BMI) recorded in the participants' health certificate within the five years of primary school education. Furthermore, we compared the results with the WHO standards. Results: The 3^rd and 50^th weight-for-age percentiles were roughly compatible with the WHO percentiles, but the 97^th percentile was higher than it. All height-for-age percentiles for boys and girls, except for those who were 11 years, were higher than the WHO percentiles. The 3^rd and 50^th BMI percentiles for girls up to seven years of age were lower than the WHO percentiles; whereas, the 50^th percentile for participants who aged seven years and older and the 97^th percentile, except for those who aged 11 years, were higher than the WHO percentiles. The 3^rd and 50^th BMI percentiles for boys up to nine years of age were lower than the WHO percentiles, but the 50^th percentile for those who aged nine years and over as well as the 97^th percentile for all ages were higher than the WHO percentiles. Conclusion: The weight and BMI indicators obtained in this study were different from the WHO standards. This highlights the need for development and use of native reference curves regarding the anthropometric indicators for children in Iran. Anthropometric indicators, World Health Organization growth standards, Growth monitoring 175 184 http://jnfs.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-96&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Mahmood Vakili No Health Monitoring Research Center, School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Mohsen Mirzaei No Yazd Cardiovascular Research Center, School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Farhad Arbabzadeh Yes School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Mahrouz Amirheidari No School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.