People cannot control most of the factors that influence their height. This is because DNA determines these factors, and they cannot change. However, there are some factors that can increase or reduce growth during childhood and puberty. Growing children and teenagers can take some steps to maximize their adult height.
What causes growth spurts? Growth spurts are a natural part of your child's development because their bones and muscles are forming, and the nutrients they eat create fat in their body. Your child's genetic composition, or the genes that they inherit from their parents, causes growth spurts.
What can I do to become taller? Taking good care of yourself — eating well, exercising regularly, and getting plenty of rest — is the best way to stay healthy and help your body reach its natural potential. There's no magic pill for increasing height. In fact, your genes are the major determinant of how tall you'll be.
Peak height velocity — your child's biggest, fastest growth spurt — typically lasts 24 to 36 months. And while it's difficult to say just how much your child will grow during this time, you can count on most of it happening, for girls, between 10 and 14 years, and, for boys, between 12 and 16 years.
As mentioned in one of the articles one good way to see if you still have growth potential is to X-ray a wrist- the test is called a Pediatric Bone Age. It will show if your growth plates are still open. A doctor can also request lab tests- checking for hormones- such as thyroid, growth hormone and sex hormones.
Boys tend to show the first physical changes of puberty between the ages of 10 and 16. They tend to grow most quickly between ages 12 and 15. The growth spurt of boys is, on average, about 2 years later than that of girls. By age 16, most boys have stopped growing, but their muscles will continue to develop.
The term “late bloomer” refers to a child who goes through puberty later than their peers. Constitutional growth delay, the medical term for this condition, runs in families. Late bloomers will catch up on their growth and have standard adult height, although it may take a little extra time and patience.
Regular exercise, especially weight-bearing and high-intensity activities like running, jumping, and strength training, can stimulate bone remodeling and increase bone density, which can help people grow taller.
The growth plates fuse in an ascending order, from the foot to the wrist, and females mature significantly earlier than males.
Most girls stop growing taller by age 14 or 15. In contrast, after their early teenage growth spurt, boys continue gaining height at a gradual pace until around 18. Note that some kids will stop growing earlier and others may keep growing a few years more.
We define puberty for girls from 10 to 14 years old, boys from 11 to 15 years old. Depending on the inheritance of height of parents, nutrition, exercise, and rest, girls can grow 10 to 12 cm tall and can increase up to 12 to 14 cm during this golden age.
After hitting puberty, it increases at the rate of 4 per cent till you reach the age of 18 years. Growth after this period slows down or completely stops. It makes many people wonder, especially those unhappy with their height, if it is possible to gain height after puberty. The answer is yes.
What is the average height for a 13 year old? The average height of a 13-year-old girl is 155.4 cm (5 ft 1), and for a 13-year-old boy, it is 154.9 (5 ft 0). This data is taken from WHO growth charts, which are the international standard for height percentiles.
However, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, 13-year-old males weigh between 35.8 kg and 55.7 kg and girls weigh between 34.4 kg and 54.3 kg.
Alas, puberty seldom goes as planned and some children wait for a growth spurt that never seems to come. In extreme cases, this could be due to pituitary disease, ovarian disease, testicular disease, or a long history of taking medications like prednisone for severe asthma.