I am really not sure how to phrase this, but my question is, assuming otherwise good nutrition, are there things teenagers who are still growing can do that can result in shorter adult stature?
(Anecdotal information: I am shorter than anyone in my family, short torso/long legs. I am also the only one in my family who rode a horse approximately daily from the time I was about 10 until I went off to college. The only reason I am not also bowlegged, I think, is that I did ballet; I do remember looking at myself in the mirror in my leotard and thinking I was a lot more bowlegged than anyone else in my class, and then I wasn’t. It could just be a fluke, but the guys I knew in HS who were into horses and rodeo also tend to be shorter, as adults.)
Conversely, is there anything teenagers can do that will (safely) maximize their height? Again, assuming good nutrition.
I was just listening to a podcast yesterday about stress, and being over-stressed can cause your body to stop growing. I’m not sure if the only diagnosis is psychogenic dwarfism or if there are more mild versions of it.
Proper exercise is believed to enhance growth, and improper exercise can interfere with it. But given reasonable nutrition and exercise, and no serious health problems, genetics is the biggest factor in your adult size.
I was on the high school wrestling team for a year in 9th grade (14 years old). For six months or so, I basically starved myself to keep myself in my assigned weight class of 98 lbs. Over this period of time, I usually at just one meal a day. After wrestling season ended, I resumed my normal diet.
Within six months after that wrestling season ended, I gained 6 inches in height and about 30 lbs of weight.
As an adult, I’m two inches shorter than my father was. I’m convinced that that six months of malnutrition permanently stunted my growth.
Many competitive gymnasts wind up with a shorter than average stature as adults, often much smaller than their parents.
I’ve always hypothesized (with no actual evidence, mind you) that the extremely restrictive diets that competitive gymnasts must follow results in a shorter than average stature, particularly since the adult physique has many similarities to certain types of dwarfism.
My brother-in-law has Crohn’s Disease & is kinda short & slight, & he believes he never got the pubescent growth spurt because of the Crohn’s, so if that’s true, what you’re saying doesn’t seem crazy.
I also remember being told that “smoking stunts your growth”, as a kid. Don’t know if there’s any truth to that, or if it was just a way to scare kids away from smoking.
Some people have a delayed growth spurt, but I don’t know whether there’s any one thing responsible. My partner grew at about an average rate, and was an average height during his teen years. Then, in his early 20s, grew to 6’10". He doesn’t recall doing anything extraordinary (except having a lot of sex), and nobody else in his family is anywhere near that tall.
I’ve heard a wild-assed theory that people stop growing permanently once they become pregnant. This isn’t usually an issue for adult women, but could result in a shorter than genetically programmed teenager. If it’s true, of course.
ETA: I went and looked this up (the jury is still out, but probably not true), and this is one of the answers: “Usually when a girl starts getting a period she is done growing.” Gah. People are stoopit.
All it would take is a single instance of a teen (or younger!) pregnant girl growing even one inch do disprove thy hypothesis. Nothing any, oh, say, OB/GYN for example would ever have figured out by now. Too hard to keep track of that kind of data!
It can certainly happen the other way. One of my aunts had pretty much stabilized in height, until she was around age 20, and had her first child. And then grew two more inches. Pregnancy can do all sorts of weird things, hormonally.
