In the process of children’s growth, parents are more or less concerned about the height of their children, and there are not a few parents who worry about their children’s short stature and bitter search for [secret recipe] for growth.
However, do parents think short is really short? If you want your child to have a tall person, is there any other reliable way to what besides finding a tall person?
In order to answer these questions about height, Dr. Clove invited a licensed doctor from the Endocrinology Department of Peking Union Medical College Hospital to listen to what he said.
Who should I compare with when I am short or not?
Parents often ask me in the short clinic: My child is shorter than many classmates in the class. Is this height too short and will he suffer from short stature?
Height and height are a set of relative concepts. It is very important to choose the reference standard, but being shorter than a few classmates does not mean that there is something wrong with the child’s height. It is also quite difficult to compare with them if these students are all Yao Ming-style height.
Then the parents have to ask again, if they don’t compare with their classmates, who should they compare with?
The correct answer is: it should be compared with the height of most normal children of the same race, age and sex.
At present, the most commonly used comparison standards are the 2006 edition of the World Health Organization (WHO) standard and the 2005 China Nine Cities standard. These standards are all based on the statistics of the height and weight of most healthy children, and then the scientific researchers draw up the standard curves of children’s height and weight according to the statistical results.
Whether it is [dwarfism] or not requires doctors to evaluate the position of the child’s height in the normal population according to these curves.
One of the commonly used evaluation methods for growth curves is the percentile method, which can distinguish multiple grades (expressed by P3, P50, P97, etc., and different tables will have certain differences). Parents can simply understand the position of the child’s height or weight in the table, and parents can simply understand the position of the child’s height or weight in 100 children of the same age and sex.
Some parents may be anxious because their children’s height or weight is lower than P50, which is not necessary. As long as the value is between P3 and P97 and the curve drawn by long-term monitoring does not deviate from its original percentile, there is generally no need to worry.
Give full play to one’s growth potential and strive to be superior to others.
Although a person’s final height is greatly influenced by his parents’ heredity, as the saying goes, “seven days are doomed, three times depend on hard work”, the day after tomorrow’s influence on height can still account for about 30%, such as 191 cm basketball star Lin Shuhao and his parents who are less than 1.7 meters.
Therefore, if we can help our children to give full play to the 30% or so [height growth] potential and grasp the [golden period] of height growth, we can also [spell] a good height.
The golden period of height must not be missed.
Long life, growth is not uniform. There are two [golden periods] of growth in the process of children’s growth.
The first golden period is the infant period, which we often say [one day is the same]. This stage of growth is extremely rapid and is the fastest growing period in one’s life.
The growth of body length in the first year after birth can reach about 25 cm, the growth in the second year is about 10 ~ 12 cm, and the average growth in the third year is about 8 cm, which can be increased by about 45 cm in the three years. Therefore, if the growth and development of the baby are affected at this stage, the final height will often be affected.
The second golden period is puberty. Girls usually start at the age of 10-12 and boys usually start at the age of 12-14.
In puberty, the height will suddenly increase for the second time, with the annual growth rate reaching 7-8 cm per year and 10-12 cm as fast as possible. This sudden increase can last for about 1-3 years, and the growth rate will gradually slow down after girls are 13 years old and boys are 15 years old.
Therefore, in general, if you want your child to have a good height on the basis of his parents’ height, you need to give full play to your child’s growth potential as much as possible and help your child sprint at the critical moment. Next, let’s talk about how to give full play to your child’s growth potential.
1. Adequate and balanced nutrition
Balanced and sufficient nutrition is the basis of growth and development. Nutrients are just like sand and gravel in Gai Lou. How can we talk about the shortage of raw materials?
Generally speaking, the diet needs to be matched with thick and thin, meat and vegetable, and not picky about food. Eat less desserts, beverages, snacks, etc.
Parents should not think that [small fat people] who have no worries about eating will not suffer from malnutrition. If they only love high-sugar and high-fat foods and do not touch vegetables and fruits at all, it will also lead to unbalanced nutrition for a long time, which is also not conducive to the growth and development of children.
At the same time, attention should be paid not to give children all kinds of health care products and supplements.
Some supplements and health care products may contain ingredients that promote development. These ingredients may make children look faster in the short term, but they will lead to the early closure of epiphyses. The resulting growth height is tantamount to promoting the growth of seedlings, and eventually the height will also be affected.
2. Reasonable Exercise
Life lies in exercise, and it is natural to grow taller without exercise. Reasonable exercise can stimulate the secretion of growth hormone, promote the formation and development of bones, and maximize the genetic potential.
The World Health Organization believes that children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 should exercise at least three times a week, and one exercise requires at least one hour of moderate to high-intensity physical activity.
Aerobic exercise types such as fast walking, jogging, rope skipping and swimming are recommended. Exercises like this can stimulate bones for a long time, continuously and rhythmically to help grow up.
3. Sleep well with good quality and quantity.
The influence of sleep on height mainly works through growth hormone. The secretion of growth hormone during the day is very small, most of which is secreted after falling asleep, and usually reaches a peak about 1 ~ 2 hours after falling asleep. Therefore, too little sleep time will affect the secretion of growth hormone.
Studies at home and abroad show that the growth rate of children with long-term poor sleep will be slower than that of children with normal sleep. Although no obvious difference has been found at present, and there is no more research to prove that their final height will be shorter than that of children with normal sleep, it is also worth paying attention to.
Generally speaking, newborns need to sleep 14-20 hours a day, 12-14 hours for 1-3 years old, and 11-12 hours for 4-6 years old. The documents issued by the Ministry of Education clearly stipulate that primary school students need to ensure 10 hours of sleep every day, 9 hours for junior high school students and 8 hours for senior high school students.
Here are some tips on sleep:
â‘ Eliminate physical discomfort
Infant sleep uneasiness is related to physical discomfort or diseases. Parents should help their children find out the reason first. It is hungry, urinated, cold or other discomfort. Some babies are reversed day and night, which may be related to falling asleep too late and sleeping too long during the day. This requires parents to start with changing the baby’s sleep habits and help the baby establish a normal biological clock.
(2) Create a sleeping atmosphere,
Older children’s poor sleep is more related to bad living habits, such as staying up late to study, watching TV, playing games, eating too much before going to bed or strenuous exercise. Therefore, the first thing to do is to avoid these bad habits, and the second thing to do is to provide children with a quiet, comfortable and light-free sleep environment.
(3) Parents Lead by Example
Children usually imitate their parents’ lifestyle, so in addition to requiring their children to go to bed early and get up early, parents themselves should set an example and accompany their children to form the habit of healthy work and rest.
Preventing Two Extremes
Adolescence also mentions two special circumstances, one is the precocious puberty of parents [who turn pale at the mention of it], and the other is the [late development] (the so-called [delayed physical development]).
1. Precocious puberty is when the growth rate reaches its peak quickly, but the growth stops early. Just like running a marathon, sprinting ahead of time can give you a temporary lead, but it also consumes your potential ahead of time and eventually falls behind. Therefore, this situation must be treated in time.
2. Late development is the opposite. Due to the long duration of the growth period before puberty, the starting point of sudden height increase is relatively high. Although temporarily lagging behind, the latter often occupies the place.
However, it should be noted that there are many factors contributing to the short stature of children, and [late development] is only one of them. Parents should not blindly make diagnosis by themselves and blindly adopt the wait-and-see approach of [wait and see]. In case the children are really short stature caused by diseases and miss the best treatment time, it will be too bad that the children will have no hope of increasing height.
Therefore, if the child is found to be abnormal in height, parents should take the child to a regular hospital in time.