• Question: I'm a very small child. Everyone in the year towers me. How can I grow ?

    Asked by midget247 to Chris, Dave, David, Fiona, Jack on 16 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Dave Farmer

      Dave Farmer answered on 16 Jun 2013:

      Hello midget247,

      I’m not a pediatric endocrinologist I’m afraid but from looking around the web a little it appears that it all comes down to patience (your growth won’t top out until you’re ~20) and keeping yourself healthy (good nutrition, regular exercise, plenty of sleep).

      This article gives quite a good summary:
      http://teens.webmd.com/features/how-tall-will-i-be?

      That being said, it’s clear that being short is no barrier to success, just Google ‘famous short people’!

      Dave

    • Photo: Jack Miller

      Jack Miller answered on 16 Jun 2013:

      Everyone grows at different rates, and at different times — in particular, you grow and develop a lot during adolescence, where various hormones are produced by your body at different times. You might well find that you shoot up in height when you get older. When exactly this happens is hard to pin down, as growth is something that’s different for everyone. It is possible for a doctor to see if you’ve got more growing left to do, either by looking at the levels of certain hormones in your blood, or by using medical scans similar to X-rays to see what the density of bone is in the growth plate in your limbs. It’s highly unlikely that anything’s wrong, however, and you’ve probably just got to wait a little bit longer! I don’t know how old you are, or what gender you are, but I’m sure that you probably haven’t finished growing yet!

      Hope this helps,

      — Jack

    • Photo: David Freeborn

      David Freeborn answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Hi midget247,

      Interesting question. You keep growing until the age of 20, and this happens at very variable rates. A lot of this is down to your genes, so you might just be lucky/unlucky, but there are some things you can do.

      Human heights have been increasing over history- mostly due to better diets. In the mid 19th century, the average height was about 10cm less than it is now. So eating a healthy and balanced diet is the best thing you can do.

      But don’t worry- being short is no bad thing. In fact, it offers some major evolutionary advantages: you can do much more for lower energy costs.

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