<p>This question is mainly geared for those parents who are tall or have tall children. No, I am not a parent, but I’m asking this here because I believe I’ll receive more mature and knowledgable answers on this forum than on the High School forum. So for those of you parents who are tall or have pretty tall children, what things, other than genes, do you think helped you/your children grow tall? I really want to know because I am about 5’10", and I want to reach that 6 ft mark before I’m done growing. I know I should be satisfied with my height considering I have much shorter parents, but I think we all know how much of a big deal height is, especially to us guys.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any way to materially affect your height (except using steroids prior to reaching full height, which is known to terminate your upward progress).</p>
<p>Eat right and work hard. Get enough sleep. I doubt there is anything to do other than that.</p>
<p>We did not “do” anything to grow taller. it is just genetics. My daughter is the family shrimp at 5’9". I was expecting her to hit 6’ as each female in the last few generations in my family seems to have been a little taller than the last (I am a little over 5’10", her Dad and brother are both over 6’).</p>
<p>But there is nothing you can do to make yourself grow taller.</p>
<p>It is genetics + nutrition. Malnutrition has an adverse impact on growth – so a person with “tall” genes will not reach their full potential in terms of height if, for example, he lives through a famine as a child. But this generally is not an issue confronted by young people living in the US or other parts of the developed world. (We have the opposite problem: an epidemic of obesity).</p>
<p>calmom is right. Other than heredity, it all depends on the nutrition you received as an infant or toddler. I know a couple of families from Eastern Europe in which the height of the kids got taller from oldest to youngest. The younger children had access to better food than their older siblings.</p>
<p>@swimcatsmom: I learned in my genetics classes that in terms of human inheritance there is a “regression towards the mean.” Folks may get taller for a few generations (see Calmom’s post about nutrition) or selective breeding (choosing other tall mates) but in general a very tall or very brilliant person becomes an outlier and future generations return to a more “normal” condition.</p>
<p>If this weren’t true, we might all be miniature dogs and great danes, or Albert Einsteins and um well. Or Heidi Klums and me. (No I don’t look that bad, but NOT Heidi Klum.)</p>
<p>We are all bright (as is everyone on CC, just like in Lake Woebeggone), but no one has come close to my dad’s tested 187 IQ. Regression to the mean. Not saying we regressed all the way, LOL.</p>
<p>As for height. We grew short. Don’t think the OP wants to hear from us. DD is a half an inch taller than me, and S an inch taller than H, but I was shorter than my mom although my bro was taller than my dad.</p>
<p>S can claim 5’8" if he fluffs up his hair (like Tom Cruise says on his website LOL) so OP at 5’10" sounds good to me.</p>
<p>It’s good to do we are not doomed to grow steadily smaller, like Alice after drinking her potion. Regression toward the mean!!! Yay!</p>
<p>Genetics & nutrition.</p>
<p>I am shorter than my parents, probably due to childhood illnesses.</p>
<p>My S is 3" taller than my ex H, who was 4" taller than me.</p>
<p>My older D has alway topped the growth charts. She is taller than me at 11 years old, and if she follows the growth chart, she will top out at 5’10" or 11", which is basically my H’s height. She is an outlier.</p>
<p>Younger D looks to split the difference between H & myself, which I think would be more typical.</p>
<p>OP,
At 5’10", you are taller than the average American male (5’9") and much taller than the average American female (5’4"), so you should consider yourself lucky. You won’t be picked for the basketball or volleyball teams, but other than that, your height should present no obstacles in life.</p>
<p>Genetics, good nutrition, and human growth hormone (HGH) are about the only things that can affect your ultimate height. At 5’10", there is probably no physician alive who would prescribe HGH for you and no insurance company who would pay for it. You are fine the way you are.</p>
<p>There is new evidence that HGH does not increase height, just speeds it. Originally they thought it gave height. Unless there is a real pituitary imbalance, taking it (in unsafe natural form or safer synthetic form) isn’t believe to confer height.</p>
<p>If you look at global diets and heights, you learn that a diet with excess protein as young kids makes kids taller and a diet without enough makes one smaller. In Asia they called this group the “bean sprout” generation. It remains to be seen if these folks are actually healthier as adults…
Steriods before growth ends can make the growth plates in the long bones close too early, making the kid shorter than genetics meant him or her to be.</p>
<p>^
Well, I’m living proof of that, thanks to the “growth doctor” my parents sent me to beginning when I was 10 or 11 and only just over four feet tall. Thanks to the daily administration of anabolic steroids for three years beginning when I was 11 (something called halotestin, see [Halotestin</a> (fluoxymesterone) - Anabolic Steroid](<a href=“http://www.halotestin.com/]Halotestin”>http://www.halotestin.com/))*, I ended up about four or five inches shorter than my predicted final height (based on X-rays), even if I did grow faster for a while.</p>
<p>Quack.</p>
<p>Of course, being so short doesn’t matter anymore now. But it made my life a lot harder, once upon a time.</p>
<p>So even if that doctor hadn’t turned out to be a child molestor (which led to a whole other set of issues for me), the whole thing was a lousy idea. Not that I blame my parents; they were only trying to help me.</p>
<p>*It makes me feel a little queasy to read things along the lines of “Halotestin is taken in mild doses (10-20 mg) every day for short periods of time, 4 weeks, 6 weeks at the very most due to its high level of toxicity,” given that I was given an only slightly smaller dose daily for three years.</p>
<p>I have no idea what helped me get taller and what was genetics, but
I’m a 5’9" female and my mom always made me chug a glass of milk every night (I hated it; that’s why I chugged it–to get it down as quickly as possible!) and eat lots of veggies.</p>
<p>I wish I knew the answer! Our children are both in the 85th percentile in height, taller than parents (who are just at the 50th percentile) and all grandparents (who were on the short side). So not sure about genes…so must be environment. But this is the kicker: they were and still are, picky eaters. They have gotten so much better as they turn into young adults, but they were always your classic, picky eaters. </p>
<p>So the only thing I can say is nutrition? Picky light eaters but it was almost always healthy food. So the kids refused to eat our ‘mixed up food’, and no dressing on their salad, or eggplant stew, or eww gravy on the potatoes…oh they were frustratingly picky (and would just go without altogether when we tried that approach). But they still ate well I guess. In their separate piles, stuff not touching the other, they ate their narrow set of ‘okay foods’: fresh uncooked veggies like spinach or carrots, pieces of apple or banana, slices of cheddar, turkey slices if it was thin enough, peanut butter. I could count on two hands the foods they would eat. I guess it didn’t hurt them.</p>
<p>In the 19th century Americans were on average the tallest people in the world (today it’s the Dutch). The reason why Americans were taller is believed to be diet. Many immigrants lived in relativel poverty in Europe and achieved prosperity in the US. This relative wealth permitted them to eat better diets and simply consume more calories. </p>
<p>The same effect is commonly observed with Asian immigrants to the US in the 20th century. It’s very common for Japanese-, Chinese-, Vietnamese-American kids to grow up to be 2 or 3 inches taller than theiir immigrant parents.</p>
<p>Even in the same family with the same genetics and nutrition, we have experienced a great degree of variation. My nephew is 6’2", his biological sister is barely 5’. My son is going to be 6’2" (according to pediatrician); his biological sister is 5’2". I am 5’4"; my husband is 5’10". Go figure.</p>
<p>How to grow taller? Retire from competitive gymnastics! I read that Carly Patterson grew 6 inches after she retired. I saw her in person about 2 years after she won the all around and hardly recognized her. My own D has grown 7-8 inches after retiring, but she only competed through 6th grade, so she might have grown that much anyway.</p>
<p>Ooo- Give yourself the illusion of being taller with good posture and a lean muscular physique.
People who carry themselves with an air of confidence and ease of movement have a presence as they enter a room.</p>
<p>OP – you might want to check with your pediatrician.</p>
<p>S/he has most likely been charting your weight and height since birth and will be able to use this data to predict how tall you will grow.</p>
<p>I agree with Batllo. My son is in a college theatre program where they do lots of physical movement work. The professors claim you can actually add a bit to your height (or your perceived height at the very least) by stretching the muscles that support your spine through exercise, and through excellent posture.</p>
<p>My son definitely seems taller!</p>
<p>But Missypie, if he were a gymnast…I don’t know. How would gymnastics work against the kids?</p>
<p>The tallest in our family is my youngest daughter, she is even taller than her dad.
From my observation, children who are not first borns are taller, my sister has 5 kids, her 5th was over 10lbs at birth.
Later pregnancies enjoy increased arterial capacity to the uterus, making them bigger at birth.</p>
<p>They are finding lots is determined in utero, so with the exception of perhaps getting " gravity boots’ or a deep tissue massage to relax ligaments every few days, your height is probably predetermined. I would spend the time trying to be the best you can be- inc on the * inside* not trying to stretch your outsides.
;)</p>