It is a natural desire to look beautiful, or to be precise, to have your appearance match the beauty standards set by society and the media. One of the physical attributes that is considered attractive, regardless of your gender, is a good height. Ever since we were a kid, we all dreamed of becoming a supermodel or an athlete, both of which require us to be substantially tall. But not everyone is lucky enough to inherit the so-called “tall genes” from their parents. The truth is, this is not entirely true. Although genetics plays a major role in your height, it is not the only determinant factor. This gives rise to such questions as “Can a child be tall if both parents are short?”, or “Can you outgrow your parents height?”. The answer to both questions is Yes, you totally can. Read on to find out how to grow taller than your genetic height.
Scientists have been studying which parent is to blame if you are not satisfied with your height. A study suggests that while your mom tends to influence how much body fat you will have; it is your dad who determines your height. In other words, you are likely to be tall if your dad is tall.
Can you grow taller than your parents
The results vary from family to family and child to child. They are also dependent upon genes and other environmental factors, especially nutrition. Healthcare providers usually use a fairly simple formula to predict their children’s adult heights based on the heights of the parents. This formula calculates the average combined height of the parents and estimates that their children’s adult heights will mostly fall within a small range of this average combined height.
Apparently, not all children of the same parents eventually have the same height, nor those of the same gender. Younger children may grow more slowly, and adult height tends to decrease in younger siblings.
Women generally stop growing taller once they reach 15 years of age, at which point their puberty ends and their growth plates have completely closed. In contrast, men can continue growing for a little bit longer, which potentially leads to the fact that women tend to be shorter in height than men.
This is also attributed to a given set of height genes. In a sense, you can say that the Y chromosome is itself one of the genes that determine your height. If a mom and dad are the same height, their daughters will be roughly the same height as them, but their sons are likely to be taller. It is because the mother must have more of the other “tall genes” than her husband in order for her to be as tall as him, and these genes get passed onto her sons. Besides, women often marry someone slightly taller than them, which still makes her sons taller than her.
Only when a mom marries someone significantly shorter than her can you be shorter than your mother. Otherwise, for sons to be shorter than moms, there have to be drastic environmental influences to offset the genetic contribution.
That being said, your parents’ genes are not the only determinant factors on how tall you will become. Not all short parents have short children. In fact, in many cases, short parents still have babies whose birth weights range from 2,800 grams to 3,500 grams. That is considered an ideal weight for newborns. Babies with such birth weights will end up having a standard average height.
As a result, even if your parents have short stature, you still can achieve outstanding height in the future if you know how to “invest” in your height growth. In addition to genetics, you can reach your maximum height if you pay proper attention to environmental factors such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, and living environment.
Short parents tall son
Regular exercise not only improves your overall health but also regulates different functions of the endocrine system, including the pituitary gland and thyroid gland. Thanks to this, the pituitary gland secretes more human growth hormone to help your body reach your genetic potential or even surpass it, increase the length of bones, and stimulate the growth of bone cells.
Such exercises or sports as swimming, cycling, basketball, hanging, running, pull-up, etc. are found to stretch the spine and promote growth hormone production within your body, thereby effectively increasing bone sizes.
Did you know that fetal nutrition can affect your later height? During the fatal stage, there is a monthly increase by 5-6 centimeters in the fetus height. This rate will decrease by degrees after birth. Hence, nutrition is crucial in this stage. Mothers need to provide adequate nutrition to the fetuses so as to help them get good height after birth. It is vitally important for mothers to eat a variety of nutrients, especially the four groups that are protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.
Sufficient supplementation of essential nutrients is also instrumental in increasing height during your growing years. Those nutrients include calcium, vitamin D, collagen, and magnesium. Calcium is an integral component of bone formation and accounts for 1.5-2% of body weight. If you want to be taller than your parents, a healthy and balanced diet is the best way to achieve this. You can also consider taking supplements in case you cannot ensure your daily diets contain sufficient nutrients for height growth
It is common knowledge that everyone needs to get enough sleep. Sleeping gives your body time to reenergize and repair itself for the next day. Lack of sleep will not allow you to function properly. Besides, deep sleep is the time when your body produces the most growth hormone, which is directly responsible for your height growth. Therefore, if you want to grow taller, the easiest things to do are getting adequate sleep every night and avoid staying up late at all costs.
Living in an unclean environment can lead to diseases among children, which potentially stunts their growth. Additionally, it is easy to consume contaminated foods in an unclean environment, resulting in digestive disorders and other diseases such as dyspepsia, diarrhea, indigestion, etc. Worse yet, these diseases eventually cause malabsorption syndrome that makes children more vulnerable to deficiencies of minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients essential for physical and mental development. All of these contribute to their stunted growth and give them a higher risk of having short stature in the future. With this in mind, parents should foster a healthy and clean living environment for their children in order to unlock their maximum height potential.
Above are our expert tips on how to grow taller than genetics. By following these, you do not have to worry about having short stature because of your parents’ modest height. In addition to your height growth, you can also increase your overall body development and enhance your general health during your growing years.
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