Diseases that adversely affect height growth
Obesity
Obesity in children is quite common in today's modern society. Obese children often have dietary intake exceeding their demands, sedentary lifestyles and little exercise. If children suffer from obesity, their height will not grow properly for many different reasons. Obese children tend to eat a lot of food with high-protein and high-fat, fast food and sugary food. Eating lots of these foods will interfere with their calcium absorption causing calcium insufficiency for bone growth and height growth.
Obese children often have sedentary lifestyles and little exercise.
Here is some advice for parents to maintain a healthy diet for their children
- Eat more fruits and vegetables each day
- Follow a frequent exercising routine
- Play sports
- Keep track of children’s weight and height
By doing so, parents can ensure a balanced and healthy diet for their children and have immediate intervention in case of obesity or any other health-related matters.
Diarrhea and digestive disorders
Diarrhea, digestive disorders and helminths are diseases that affect children's height growth. According to a survey conducted on 119 children, in the first two years of life, children who suffer from seven episodes of diarrhea will be 3.6 cm shorter than their healthy peers when they reach the age of 7. Similarly, children who suffer from intestinal helminths will be 4.6 cm shorter than their healthy peers. If children suffer from these two diseases at the same time, the severity will be higher.
When children suffer from intestinal infections, they are at risk of excessively losing protein into the gastrointestinal tract, which affects the absorption of nutrients from foods. Moreover, most of the energy will be mobilized to fight diseases. As a result, there are not enough nutrients for the growth in general and the height growth in particular.
Congenital heart disease
Congenital heart disease is a malformation and a defect of the structure of the heart that is present at birth. When children suffer from congenital heart disease, their hearts will not perform well and easily become weakened, which causes bad effects on their health such as impairment in mental and physical strength, decreased life expectancy, high risk of death, etc. Children with heart disease do not have the ability to be physically active as normal children.
Children with congenital heart disease often suffer from stunted growth.
Poor mobility, poor eating and weak body resistance are the reasons why children with heart disease have short stature because these are important determinants of height growth. If children with heart disease are not treated properly and positively, they will suffer from stunted growth.
Congenital heart disease in children can be completely prevented if parents comply with guidelines such as pre-marriage health checks, maintaining good health during pregnancy and vaccination before pregnancy.
Turner syndrome
Turner syndrome is a genetic disorder that only occurs in females as the result of a missing or partially missing of the X chromosome. About 1 in 4,000 newborn girls suffers from this syndrome. Newborn girls with Tuner syndrome will suffer from stunted growth, short necks with extra folds of skin on the necks, large breasts and have short stature.
If children with Tuner syndrome are treated with human growth hormone in the early years of puberty, their height can increase by a few centimeters and they can start to have periods.
