Average height for a 10-year-old is about 143cm (4’8.5”) using the US CDC/NHANES reference, for both boys and girls. Using the WHO international reference, the figure is lower, at about 137.8cm (4’6.5”) for boys and 138.7cm (4’6.5”) for girls. The two references disagree by roughly 5cm at this age because they’re built from different populations, not because either is wrong.
Average height at 10, both references
| Reference | Boys | Girls |
|---|---|---|
| CDC/NHANES (US) | 143.0cm (4’8.5”) | 143.1cm (4’8.5”) |
| WHO 2007 (international) | 137.8cm (4’6.5”) | 138.7cm (4’6.5”) |
| Difference | ~5.2cm | ~4.4cm |
| Name | Height |
|---|---|
| 10yo boy, CDC (US) | 143 cm |
| 10yo boy, WHO | 137.8 cm |
| 10yo girl, CDC (US) | 143.1 cm |
| 10yo girl, WHO | 138.7 cm |
Check where your own child’s height falls against either reference with the calculator below, pre-filled with the CDC boys’ figure.
Percentile
50th
At 143 cm and age 10, you are taller than approximately 50% of the CDC reference population for your sex.
z-score 0.00
Why CDC and WHO disagree by about 5cm
A roughly 5cm gap between two reference tables, for the same age and sex, looks like a contradiction at first glance. It isn’t. CDC/NHANES is built from a US population sample; WHO 2007 is designed as an international reference, drawing on a broader, multi-country dataset.
Different samples produce different medians, especially at ages where growth is uneven across regions and rising quickly. Different underlying methodology, particularly how each organisation models the spread of heights around the median, adds a further small effect on top of the raw sample difference.
Neither figure is “more correct” than the other. They’re answers to two different questions: how does this child compare to other US children, and how does this child compare to an international reference population. Use whichever matches the comparison you actually want to make.
Which reference should you use?
If you’re comparing a child specifically against other children in the United States, the CDC/NHANES figure (143.0cm boys, 143.1cm girls) is the closer match, since it’s built from that population. If you want a general international comparison instead, the WHO figure (137.8cm boys, 138.7cm girls) is the more widely used international field standard.
This site’s percentile calculator, used above, lets you switch between the two references for any height and age. That’s a more precise check than reading a single average off a table, since it accounts for the full spread of heights at that age, not just the midpoint.
Boys and girls: nearly identical at 10
At exactly age 10, boys’ and girls’ average heights are very close on both charts. In the CDC table, girls are marginally ahead of boys — 143.1cm against 143.0cm, a difference of just 0.1cm.
That small lead is consistent with girls typically entering puberty, and its associated growth spurt, earlier than boys. It’s a genuine pattern, not noise: this site’s UK-by-age article shows girls’ median overtaking boys’ through the primary-school years, before boys’ median moves ahead again from around age 14.
The gap at 10 is small enough to be practically unremarkable. It becomes much more noticeable by ages 12-13, as girls move further into their growth spurt while most boys’ spurts haven’t started yet.
Height at 10 in context: ages 9-11
| Age | CDC boys | CDC girls | WHO boys | WHO girls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 years | 135.6cm (4’5.5”) | 137.5cm (4’6”) | 132.6cm (4’4”) | 132.5cm (4’4”) |
| 10 years | 143.0cm (4’8.5”) | 143.1cm (4’8.5”) | 137.8cm (4’6.5”) | 138.7cm (4’6.5”) |
| 11 years | 149.0cm (4’10.5”) | 151.2cm (4’11.5”) | 143.2cm (4’8.5”) | 145.0cm (4’9”) |
The CDC table’s jump between ages 9 and 10 is larger than a typical single year elsewhere in the table, which is a known feature of this dataset — see the method note below. The WHO figures rise more evenly, since WHO’s underlying table is smoother at yearly resolution across this age range.
By age 11, girls have pulled further ahead of boys on both references, reflecting how widespread the early stages of the female growth spurt already are by that age.
Method and sources
CDC/NHANES figures are the published median (50th percentile) stature for age 9, 10 and 11, taken directly from this site’s CDC stature-for-age table (Fryar et al., 2016, Table 7). WHO figures are the WHO 2007 height-for-age median, linearly interpolated between the reference’s yearly data points to land on whole-year ages 9, 10 and 11, using the same LMS method as this site’s percentile calculator.
The CDC table’s age-to-age swings are noisier than WHO’s, because the underlying NHANES sample size per age/sex cell is much smaller than WHO’s international sample — a documented feature of the CDC dataset used here, not an error in this page.
This is general reference information, not medical advice. If you have a specific concern about a child’s growth, a GP or paediatrician can assess it properly, using clinical growth charts rather than a general article like this one.
Read how percentiles work for a fuller explanation of what these figures mean, or try the full percentile calculator with your own child’s exact height and age. You can also open the comparison board to see these figures stood side by side.
See also: average height for teenagers, 13 to 16 and average height for toddlers and children aged 1 to 5.