A growth curve is an empirical model of the evolution of a quantity over time.
Growth curve models (GCM) in longitudinal studies are widely used in many
disciplines besides biology, particularly in statistics, population studies, economics,
biological sciences, statistical quality control, environment, sociology, nano￾biotechnology, fluid mechanics and for quantities such as population size, body
height, biomass, and fungal growth. An important precursor of the GCM is the
classical GCM considered by S N Roy and R. Potthoff in early 1960s and C R
Rao about the same time. That leads to the development of repeated measurement
designs, longitudinal models, and related evolutionary models in epidemiology and
bioinformatics. Even the Chaos theory comes under such models. It has important
applications in psychometry and psychiatry. The evolutionary models are also akin
to GCM. Growth and nutrition of Indian children has not improved much in spite of
India’s economic prosperity