"We found that his epiphyseal line was closed and could no longer grow, and the boy ended up only 153cm tall."
Jiang Qun, chief physician of pediatrics at Zhejiang Xiaoshan Hospital and an expert in pediatric growth and development, said.
The point is that the boy is only 15 years old, and his parents are usually busy and have no awareness of interfering with height, so it would be nice if he could come earlier.
Regretful......
We all know that spring is the golden period for children to grow, so that the children's growth and development clinic is very popular, exaggerated to the point that some places have been ranked until June.
After all, who doesn't want their children to be higher and higher.
It just so happened that the National Health Commission issued an announcement to implement the latest "Growth Standards for Children Under 7 Years of Age" (hereinafter referred to as the "Growth Standards") from March 1, 2023.
Today let's talk about:
How to check the current status of children's height according to the new standards?
and, some simple and easy "magic weapons for growing taller".
01
What is my child's height?
For our parents, the biggest role of "Growth Standards" is to see what level is the height of their own children, normal or not? Has it grown slowly, dwarf?
Let me first briefly translate this table.
The ordinate is age, calculated as a whole month or a whole year.
P3, P10 in the abscissa... P97, which represents the percentile of the child's growth level, can also be simply understood as a percentage.
When self-checking, first distinguish between boys and girls, then find the child's age in the first column of the table, and then look to the right to find the corresponding average height value and the percentile range.
For example, a colleague's boy, 6 years old, 125cm tall, roughly at the level of P90, meaning taller than 90% (the vast majority) of boys of the same age.
Put on the height self-test table that everyone cares about the most:
☟ Male treasure look at this ☟
☟ Female treasure look at this ☟
02
Don't delay your child with the phrase "grow late"
Professional intervention should be done early
Have you ever heard something similar: twenty-three jumps, twenty-five drums.
It means that when you are an adult, even over 20 years old, you still have the opportunity to jump tall, so a low point when you are a child is not in the way. Children in the past, undernourished, developed late, and may grow late. Today's children are well nourished, and the general age of development is advanced. Even if there are indeed children who grow later, they are very few.
Therefore, if after self-examination, it is found that the child's height is lower than the median (P50), it is recommended to go to the growth and development clinic to ask a doctor, take a bone age film, and then decide whether medical intervention is needed.
In addition to looking at the absolute value of height like the above, and being taller and shorter than your peers, you should also pay attention to the growth rate of your child, which is equivalent to comparing yourself and yourself in height. The most intuitive way is to look at the child's "growth curve".
What do you think of the growth curve? The abscissa is the age, the ordinate is the height, first select the age of the child, and then go up to find the corresponding height curve.
The above 7 curves are height curves, and the middle one, which is the curve represented by 0, is the average height of the crowd, and the height of normal people is between -2 and +2 curves.
Below the -2 curve, higher than the +2 curve, it is recommended to diagnose as soon as possible whether there is a pathological cause.
Height curve for girls aged 2-18 (Produced by Capital Children's Research Institute)
We all know that spring is the golden period for children to grow, so that the children's growth and development clinic is very popular, exaggerated to the point that some places have been ranked until June.
After all, who doesn't want their children to be taller.
It just so happened that the National Health Commission issued an announcement to implement the latest "Growth Standards for Children Under 7 Years of Age" (hereinafter referred to as the "Growth Standards") from March 1, 2023.
Today let's talk about:
How to check the current status of children's height according to the new standards?
and some simple and easy "magic weapons for growing taller".
01
What is my child's height?
For our parents, the biggest role of "Growth Standards" is to see what level is the height of their own children, normal or not? Has it grown slowly, dwarf?
Let me first briefly translate this table.
The ordinate is age, calculated as a whole month or a whole year.
P3, P10 in the abscissa... P97, which represents the percentile of the child's growth level, can also be simply understood as a percentage.
When self-checking, first distinguish between boys and girls, then find the child's age in the first column of the table, and then look to the right to find the corresponding average height value and the percentile range.
For example, a colleague's boy, 6 years old, 125cm tall, roughly at the level of P90, meaning taller than 90% (the vast majority) of boys of the same age.
Put on the height self-test table that everyone cares about the most:
☟ Male treasure look at this ☟
☟ Female treasure look at this ☟
02
Don't delay your child because of the phrase "grow late", professional intervention should be early
It is said that 60%-70% of height is genetic, but 30%-40% is in our own hands.
Parents can help their children grow taller through a few simple practices.
After all, the golden period for children to grow up is only a few years, and missing out may never be again.
I would like to share 3 tricks with you.
1. Eat healthy and nutritious
The importance of diet to grow taller cannot be overemphasized.
A major premise is that you can't be too obese.
Height experts especially emphasize: high oil, high salt, high sugar food to children to eat less, not only unhealthy, but also easy to increase the risk of obesity in children. And obese children are prone to not grow tall. This is the current consensus in the medical community: obesity is a major cause of precocious puberty in children. Precocious puberty in turn can lead to premature closure of the epiphysis, affecting the child's height development.
Also, do not give your child bird's nest, sea cucumber and other supplements to avoid premature development.
After talking about what you don't eat, let's talk about how to eat.
Focus: balanced nutrition.
A nutritionist friend said: There are no bad foods, only bad pairings.
So you might as well replace "white porridge + vegetables" with "multigrain porridge + eggs + vegetables and fruits".
Replace "eggs + milk" with "eggs + milk + whole wheat bread + vegetables and fruits".
There is also a small detail that the speed of eating will also affect the long one, didn't expect it?
Try to make an agreement with the whole family, control the meal time in half an hour, and after that, clean up the dishes and chopsticks, and stop eating.
If the child is really a picky eater, you can change the pattern to do it, or adults eat fragrant on the side to show the child, so that the child slowly loves eating.
2. Seize these two golden periods of sleep
Sleep is good for growth.
In young children and adolescents, half of growth hormone is secreted after deep sleep at night, and its secretion peaks at 9-12 p.m.
Dr. Jiang, a pediatric growth and development expert, reminds parents that it is best to fall asleep before 9 o'clock during the growth of their children.
Because sleep will enter the deep sleep stage after 1 hour, a large amount of growth hormone will be secreted.
Many people may not know that there is actually another golden sleep period - 5-7 a.m.
This is another small spike in growth hormone secretion.
Therefore, in the future, on weekends and holidays, don't rush to wake up the children.
Attachment: The amount of sleep required by children of different ages
Don't rush to spit bitter water, as a parent of elementary school students, I know that this ideal sleep duration is really difficult to guarantee.
As long as we try to let the child sleep as well as possible, it is really not guaranteed, and there is no need to be too anxious, and we can start from other aspects.
3. Do more "growth exercise" appropriately
There is no doubt about the role of exercise in promoting tallerness.
Scientific studies have confirmed that children who exercise regularly are at least 2-3 cm taller than children who do not exercise.
Now is a good time for spring blossoms, don't always let your children stay at home, you can choose some upward jumping sports, such as skipping rope, playing basketball, badminton, pull-ups, etc.
Exercise can enhance the body's cardiopulmonary function and promote the absorption and utilization of nutrients.
4. A good mood is the premise of everything
Does this pressure have anything to do with being tall?
It really matters!
There is a term in medicine called "psychogenic short stature".
It means that the child lives in a family environment of mental depression, no one cares or is often beaten and scolded for a long time, the hypothalamic pituitary system will be affected by emotions, growth hormone will be suppressed, and the child's height growth will slow down accordingly.
Therefore, children with a tall posture are good, but let's not put the cart before the horse, because happy children are likely to grow taller, and excessive pressure will only inhibit the growth and development of children.
Children's growth and development is never a trivial matter, and we need to pay attention to it at all times.
If you find today's sharing useful, don't forget to pass it on to your family!
Bibliography:
1. Expert Consensus on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Central Precocious Puberty (2022)
2. "Investigation of the current situation of quality of life and analysis of influencing factors in children with short stature", Chinese Journal of Clinical Nursing
3. "Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of short children", Chinese Journal of Pediatrics
4. Professor Pan Hui of Union Medical College Hospital "Concord experts say grow taller: let the child grow 10 cm longer"
5. The National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China issued the "Growth Standards for Children Under 7 Years of Age"