About the Authors

Carina Salt

Affiliation WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Mars Petcare, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Penelope J. Morris

Affiliation WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Mars Petcare, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Alexander J. German

ajgerman@liverpool.ac.uk

Affiliation Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, University of Liverpool, Neston, Cheshire, United Kingdom

Derek Wilson

Affiliation WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Mars Petcare, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Elizabeth M. Lund

Affiliation Banfield Pet Hospital, Vancouver, WA, United States of America

Tim J. Cole

Affiliation Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Richard F. Butterwick

Affiliation WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Mars Petcare, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

CS, PJM, DW and RFB are employees of WALTHAM, EML is an employee of Banfield Pet Hospitals, and both are owned by Mars Inc. AJG is an employee of the University of Liverpool, but his post is financially supported by Royal Canin, which is owned by Mars Petcare. AJG has also received financial remuneration for providing educational material, speaking at conferences, and consultancy work from this company; all such remuneration has been for projects unrelated to the work reported in this manuscript. TJC received financial remuneration for initial guidance on curve development, and for advice on developing charts as a clinical tool for growth monitoring. Remuneration was not received for drafting, reviewing and approving the manuscript for publication. None of these declarations alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: CS PJM EML TJC RFB. Data curation: CS PJM. Formal analysis: CS DW TJC. Methodology: CS DW TJC. Project administration: RFB. Supervision: RFB. Validation: CS PJM AJG EML. Visualization: CS DW AJG. Writing – original draft: CS AJG RFB. Writing – review & editing: CS PJM AJG DW EML TJC RFB.