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Issue 168
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(This film is adapted from the Gao Zan picture of Zhihu Answering Lord @ Early Summer Of Han)
First of all, I would like to ask you a question: If you could go back to your childhood with one click, what efforts would you make to grow taller?
First of all, to talk about my answer, if I could go back to my childhood with one click, I would definitely have to "reshape" my height. Because when I was a child, I didn't know that nutrition and growth had so much to do with growth, let alone the golden age of height growth, so I basically only ate what I loved. In fact, my luck is good, my mother is a nurse, she knows the nutritional balance, as well as the importance of drinking milk, vitamin supplementation for height, etc., mainly because I am not obedient. So if your parents don't know much about nutrition, then your growth is really "with the gene". So obviously if I can go back in time, I have to try to get my height up to the upper limit of my genes.
Of course, as a professional dietitian, my attitude towards my son's height has always been to accept the immutable nature of the genes themselves, but at the same time, the scientific improvement part must not be left behind. This is the scientific parenting method that does not worry. But if there is a problem with height, it is indeed quite difficult to be completely unsettled. But blindly making up for it is not a wise approach. In fact, to solve the problem of height, the first step is to know what factors determine height, and then talk to everyone.
Picture from Parenting Mutual Nutrition and Complementary Food Group: Xiaomei Mother
1. Congenital factors: genetic changes in parents and themselves.
2, acquired factors: such as diet, environment, disease, and physical exercise and so on.
So the mindset of looking at height reasonably is to optimize the acquired factors and make the height reach the upper limit of our genes.
Because the relationship between height and heredity is beyond doubt, but its association is not as simple and rough as many people think, it is actually very closely related to the age of the child. First of all, let us tell you the conclusion, that is, in the growth period of children and adolescents, the smaller the child, the more dependent on nutrition, and the closer to adulthood, the greater the influence of genetic factors.
20%-40% of the height of children is determined by acquired factors, and 60%-80% is determined by congenital factors. This blockbuster paper comes from a twin cohort study published in the authoritative medical academic journal The Lancet in 2020. Here, I will give you the key arguments in the article.
1, 1-5 years old children: the proportion of nutritional effects at a young age is higher.
Before the age of 2 and 5: Nutrition and other life factors have the controllable influence on the baby's height is the largest in life, which can be described as the "golden period of rushing".
After 3 and 5 years old: School-age children have a certain rationality, dietary choices are easier, and checking for omissions and filling in gaps has become a very important homework for parents.
4, after puberty: the diet with adults has been very close, the whole family can eat healthily.
China's big data also shows that your height can also be improved nutritionally. According to the data of the "Report on the Nutrition and Chronic Disease Status of Chinese Residents (2020)", with the gradual improvement of dietary quality, the height has also risen with the tide, and the average height of Chinese men aged 18-44 is 169.7 cm, and the average height of Chinese women is 158 cm, which is 1.2 cm and 0.8 cm respectively compared with the results released in 2015. This is the direct relationship between typical nutrition and height.
Therefore, parents must grasp the controllable factor of nutrition during development, so how to maximize the acquired factor?
Image from Parenting Mutual Nutrition and Food Supplement Group: Yi Duo Mom
Nutrition is key.
As mentioned earlier, the smaller the baby, the more important it is to supplement nutrition, and supplement nutrition must be done as soon as possible. So dietary and supplement strategies are different before, 5-10, and after age 5.
1, 2-5 years old period: In addition to the need to refer to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (Preschool Children Version)" in the diet, as a nutritionist mother must advise everyone to correct and supplement the old and difficult problems of this age group in time - picky eating.
In my own parenting process, I can sigh that the nutritious meals made by my mother are "plump", and the content of the baby's food is absolutely "bone". Therefore, it is very important to do a good job of nutritional supplementation outside the diet, and it is also based on scientific evidence.
For children at risk of nutrient absorption, timely oral nutritional supplements can effectively help children catch up with development and height, and I should be 1-5 years old this golden period, the nutrition plan for my son is to refer to the dietary pagoda to do a good meal, encounter picky eating or sick situation to check the deficiencies and fill in the gaps to arrange supplements.
After the age of 2 or 5: Children who start primary school have a certain degree of rationality, so it is often more effective to "targeted" nutrition at this age than to focus on diet in the previous stage.
To know what other tricks there are besides eating with the dietary pagoda, we need to know which nutrients are crucial for growing tall, so I can go straight to the small copy. Nutrients that help grow taller are these:
1, high-quality protein: pay attention to the balance of sources, dairy products, meat and eggs, beans are a good source of high-quality protein.
2, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium: is the key minerals that make up the bones, follow the diet pagoda to eat complete.
3, vitamin D: daily outdoor activities are indispensable, not only to supplement vitamin D, but also to stimulate bone development.
Image from Parenting Mutual Nutrition and Complementary Food Group: Moms Again
If I can really go back to the past with one click, I must seize the golden period of a long time, use scientific nutritional diet to help me reach the upper limit of genetic height, and now that I have a child, I can realize this meaningful action on him, so that he can not only rush to the upper limit of genes, but also comprehensively enhance his physique.
So, scientific parenting can really fulfill the dream of going back in time with one click as we think.
What efforts have you made to make your baby taller?
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About author:Wang Bin, a child nutritionist, is a national second-level public nutritionist and a national senior nutrition lecturer. Good at combining medicine with modern nutrition knowledge, focusing on the field of maternal and infant nutrition and health, teaching you to feed your children scientifically!