What are the factors that affect children's height growth?
Factors that affect children's height growth
Nutrition during pregnancy: From the fourth month onwards, the fetuses' bones begin to be formed and develop. In order to facilitate the process of bone formation and bone growth of the fetuses as well as to facilitate children's height growth, later on, pregnant women need to pay attention to their diets and avoid stress.
Genetics: It is undeniable that genetics accounts for a major part of human height growth. That means children's height is influenced by their parents' genes. If parents are tall, their offspring will inherit the genes that give them good height.
Children's height depends on many factors.
Nutrition: Nutrition is extremely important to human height growth. Improper diet is one of the main causes of illnesses and stunting. Moreover, some habits in food processing or nutritional supplementation for children can cause anorexia, obesity and malabsorption syndrome which affect the height growth of children.
Exercise: Parents often fear that children will be hurt and tired when playing sports, doing exercises, participating in physical activities or playing with friends. That's why many parents do not encourage children to join these activities without knowing that exercise also stimulates better height growth. Frequent exercising makes the joints become flexible and helps shoulder muscles and leg muscles be stretched, which rapidly and effectively supports height growth.
Sleep: In order to grow taller, the body needs to be given growth hormones every day. Meanwhile, the growth hormone production is most effective at night, from 11:00 PM to 01:00 AM. Therefore, sleep has a great influence on the height growth of children. Children need to go to bed before 10:00 PM and get enough sleep, from 8 to 10 hours a day, to facilitate their physical development.
Living environment: This is also considered one of the factors that can affect children's height growth. Scientific studies have shown that children who live in polluted environments with polluted water sources or have to suffer hard lives will be shorter than children who live in clean environments and have comfortable lives.
The living environment can affect the height growth of children.
How to help children grow taller maximally
In order to help children grow taller maximally, parents need to:
- Avoid stress during pregnancy and sufficiently provide nutrients to their bodies during pregnancy, especially calcium, to support the bone growth of the fetuses so that the babies will have a good height (usually 50 cm) after birth.
- Pay proper attention to three golden stages for the height growth of children. 0-3 years old and puberty (10-16 years old for females and 12-18 years old for males) are golden stages for the height growth of children. In these stages, children need to be sufficiently provided with nutrients such as Calcium, Collagen Type II, Phosphorus, Magnesium, and Zinc while limiting high-fat foods, alcoholic beverages, caffeine, carbonated drinks, etc.
Children need to be sufficiently provided with nutrients.
- Remind children to go to bed on time, avoid staying up late, get up early and spend at least 15 minutes for an afternoon nap.
- Encourage children to play height-increasing sports such as swimming, volleyball, basketball, badminton, pull-up, and jogging.
