I’m worried about my nephew. He is very tall.
At 15 years of age he stands 186 cm which is 6’ 1". He can no longer sit in the family car without reclining the seat. And he still has several more years of growing to do.
Is there anything that can be done to stop him growing so tall that his quality of life will be impacted?
Medical advice is best suited to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
How tall are his parents?
If his parents are concerned, they should speak to his pediatrician.
I had a cousin who at 15 was way taller than his classmates. Turned out he had reached his full growth early and never got any taller.
6’1" is not that tall. That being said, one son was about that tall at the same age, and topped out at 6’6. Haven’t noticed any QOL issues, but he did play basketball. Shoes a bit of an issue, and he’ll never drive a subcompact, but that is balanced by the general boost society seems to give tall men.
I and the two boys are right around 6’3.
How on earth could being tall be considered a negative trait?
Depends on what’s causing it. There are serious medical conditions which have exaggerated height as a symptom.
Ask Robert Wadlow, the Alton Giant. Oh, wait, you can’t, because he died in 1940. At 8’11.1", he was the tallest person who ever lived. Yes, he was an extreme example, but his height definitely had an impact on the quality of his life.
you have no way of knowing that. I reached my adult height by 16. There’s no “rule” which says we all continue growing until age 18, then immediately stop.
yes, but people with such conditions show signs of it far sooner than “he’s taller than I think he should be at 15.” Your own link says Mr. Wadlow was taller than his 5’ 11" father by age 8, and was over 8’ tall by the time he left high school.
He’s fifteen, he can see a GP, and would probably prefer to. And if there’s a potential pituitary problem that GP will recommend a specialist. But 6’1" isn’t incredibly unusual for a 15 year old. My youngest was taller than every kid in every class until he reached 15, and then he stopped growing and most boys were taller than him when he graduated high school.
If you get over 7 feet tall you start to have health problems as the human body was not built to be that tall.
And people who get over 7 feet tall don’t live that long.
I think what you’re describing is pretty normal for most tall people. I have an uncle (through marriage) who is 6’5’’, his sisters are all over 6’ tall, they have always been tall since their teens.
Are you the only one in the family who is concerned about this?
He is in the 97th percentile (I entered his age as 15 1/2). The fact that he still falls within the growth chart means that he’s not exactly sideshow material (no offense intended).
If his parents are concerned they should set up an appointment with a **pediatric **endocrinologist. They would do a bone scan - a simple x-ray of the hand - to look at his growth plates and determine how much more growing he has left to do. He may, in fact, be pretty much done.
If the scan indicates there is still a good amount of growth left and he has not completed puberty, they might do a growth hormone suppression test to see if he is secreting too much growth hormone. This is a several hour test that involves a series of blood draws.
This is an extremely rare condition, though. He is almost certainly merely a tall dude.
mmm
There’s a girl in our neighborhood who was 6’ at age 15. Yes, she’s a basketball star and is probably 6’-1" - 6’-2" now at age 17. She’s also normally proportioned and quite attractive; I suspect your nephew is just on the high end of the bell curve.
6’1" at age 15 is not abnormal. If he’s otherwise healthy, it’s nothing to worry about.
And it’s his parents’ job to deal with it.
my oldest grandson is 6’ at age 13, but his mother is 6’1" so I am not really concerned. His maternal grandfather was 6’3" or so and a maternal uncle is 6’5" or so. Genetics, go figure.
There was an man who wanted to be a Gemini program astronaut. However due to the size of the capsule he would be disqualified for being 1" above the program maximum. The day before the medical he spent the entire night jumping up and down in his hotel room. This caused his spine to compress enough that he was able to qualify.
Maybe something like that would work for him, although as I understand it this is a temporary fix. Perhaps you could encourage him to take up smoking or weight lifting both of which can stunt your growth. You could also try mal-nutrition although as I understand it after age 3 mal-nutrition doesn’t work that well. Not sure what you are asking for as a solution to the problem of being “Too Tall” if his genes are wanting him to grow who are you to disagree?
Bill Uhl a former basketball player for the University of Dayton was 7.0 ft and is currently 83. That is above average I think. I think he has been married for about 60 years also.
[ol]
[li]He already can’t sit upright in the family car. [/li][li]If he gets too tall he will have trouble finding clothes that fit.[/li][li]He will have trouble fitting in an airline seat.[/li][/ol]
Maybe read the life story of Robert Wadlow to see how hard life can be for those with excessive height.
I’m not suggesting that my nephew will get that tall but I think at heights of 6’ 6" and above there will be problems.