Spring is the prime time of the year for children to grow taller. According to a study by the World Health Organization, children grow fastest in the spring, with the value of height increase in the three months from March to May equal to 2-2.5 times the height increase in the three months from September to November.
How can we seize this golden season to make our children grow taller and taller? And what are the misconceptions to avoid? What should I do if my child is already half a head shorter than his peers?
Before formulating a growth plan, you may want to take a bone age test
Bone age is short for skeletal age, which is the core indicator that determines a child’s growth potential. Bone age assessment can more accurately reflect an individual’s level of growth and maturity. Suppose there are two 10-year-old girls, both 139 cm tall, but one bone age is only 9 years old, indicating that there is still about 5 years of growth space, adult height should be able to grow to 165 cm to; another bone age has reached 12 years old, the growth potential will be greatly reduced, adult height is only about 150 cm or so. Therefore, children of the same age and height may have great differences in lifetime height.
Therefore, parents are advised to have their children’s bone age measured every six months, especially for children with early sexual development and puberty, so that parents can fully understand their children’s growth potential and give targeted intervention measures. In addition, the bone age test must be carried out in a regular high-grade hospital, the cost is about 60 yuan.
Children’s growth is also about the “combination of movement and stillness”
The “combination of movement” refers to the combination of sleep and exercise. Growth hormone, the hormone that promotes human growth, is secreted three times more during sleep than during waking hours, so getting enough sleep is good for growth. Muscle relaxation during sleep facilitates joint and bone stretching. Spring is the time when we have the best sleep quality, so we should try to let children go to bed early, get enough sleep and sleep well to ensure the secretion of growth hormone.
Exercise can also stimulate growth hormone secretion. About 20 minutes of exercise can bring the amount of growth hormone to a peak in normal children. Regular exercise for children can promote bone growth, and bouncing and stretching exercises are the most effective, such as jumping rope, bar pull-ups, gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, badminton, etc. It is recommended that children in the growth period exercise for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon.
Eating and calcium supplementation is a discipline
Nutrition is a key factor affecting a child’s growth and development, but it does not mean that the more you eat, the better, the more refined the better. In daily life, parents should avoid picky eating, anorexia, overeating and irregular diet, and pay attention to the reasonable mix of children’s diet to ensure a balanced intake of vitamins, proteins, calcium and various trace elements.
Parents are advised to give their children 250ml-500ml of milk, 1-2 eggs, 100g or more of lean meat and fish every day to ensure the supply of protein and calcium, while eating less fried food and Western fast food, and drinking less carbonated drinks.
Finally, a special reminder that parents must not blindly give their children calcium and zinc supplements, which can easily cause side effects.
Four misconceptions make children lose the opportunity to grow taller
Myth 1: Children are still young, they will always grow in the future if they don’t grow now
In fact, this waiting mentality of parents is wrong, if you do not go to professional testing institutions in time to test, in case the secretion of growth hormone is insufficient, then the child may stop growing, until the epiphysis closes the child will never grow taller.
Myth 2: If the parents are not short, the child’s height must be fine
Although heredity is an important factor that affects height, it only accounts for about 70% of the total height of a child. If a child suffers from growth hormone deficiency, idiopathic dwarfism and other diseases, the genetic height has no reference value at all.
Myth 3: If we are all so short, our children will definitely not grow taller.
Some parents think that their children are born short because of their own unsatisfactory height, so they don’t help their children to fight for it even if they have the chance to grow taller, which is actually a very wrong concept.
Misconception 4: Blindly believe in advertising
Blindly believe in all kinds of advertisements with the psychology of “seeking medical help in case of emergency”, randomly give children to take or use all kinds of height increasing health products and height increasing devices, and take children to informal hospitals and institutions with the name of “height increasing guidance center” for consultation, which will not only seriously delay children’s This will not only seriously delay your child’s precious treatment time, but also easily produce side effects such as premature sexual maturity.
What should I do if I find that my child is short?
If your child is half a head shorter than his or her peers, sits in the first row of the class, grows less than 5 cm a year, or starts to develop sexually at the age of 8 or 9, parents must take him or her to the pediatric department or endocrinology department of a regular hospital to find out the cause in a timely manner. The earlier the treatment, the better the effect and the lower the cost. The earlier the treatment, the better the results and the lower the costs. As long as the treatment is timely and systematic, children with dwarfism will generally achieve a more desirable lifelong height.