There are three types of pubertal development: normal development, early development and delayed pubertal development. Early puberty is the development of secondary sexual characteristics in girls before the age of 8 and in boys before the age of 9. About 80% to 90% of female children with early development have no organic lesions; in contrast, more than 80% of male children have organic lesions. Delayed puberty is defined as the absence of secondary sexual characteristics in girls at the age of 13 and in boys at the age of 14. Depending on the cause, it can be classified as permanent hypogonadism, temporary gonadal delay and somatic delay in puberty development. From the age of 3 to the beginning of puberty (about 10 years old for girls and 12 years old for boys), children grow about 5 cm in height every year during this period. Due to the regulation of growth hormone and sex hormones, children’s growth accelerates again when they enter puberty. Growth hormone plays a dominant role in human growth, and a deficiency of growth hormone can cause short stature.
Sex hormones can trigger accelerated growth during puberty and accelerate epiphyseal maturation while promoting sexual maturation, so precocious puberty can lead to premature epiphyseal closure, resulting in a halt to height growth. Early development of children shortens the growth period, resulting in low height and lifelong height is lower than that of children with normal pubertal development.
When a child has early development, parents need to take the child to check the development status and detect the epiphyseal cartilage closure, and use CHN standards to determine the bone age, so that they can analyze the differences in the child’s bone growth, assess the growth potential, and develop a scientific and reasonable personalized growth plan and exercise prescription to explore the final growth potential of children who have stopped growing but whose bones have not closed.