6 ways to help children increase height

Diet, lifestyle habits, and exercise are factors that need attention to help children increase their height.

Children's height development depends on just over 20% genetics, the remaining 80% depends on other factors such as nutrition, living habits, sports...

To maximize children's height development, it is necessary to identify factors affecting height and from there have appropriate impacts and reasonable adjustments to help children achieve ideal height.

Stages of body height development

There are three stages of rapid body growth in height.

One is the fetal period: During the 9 months of pregnancy, if the mother eats well and gains 10-20 kg, the baby will be 50 cm tall at birth and weigh 3 kg or more.

Second is the newborn to 3 year old stage: in the first 12 months, the child grows 25 cm, in the next 2 years, each year the child grows 10 cm taller if well nourished.

Third is puberty: Girls from 10-16 years old and boys from 12-18 years old are in puberty. During puberty, the body will have 1-2 years of height growth of 8-12 cm per year if well nourished. But in reality, we cannot determine exactly which year it is, so we still have to ensure good nutrition for children throughout puberty for them to develop.

After puberty, children's bodies also increase in height, but at a very slow rate. The total height increase of the following years is not equal to one year of height increase during puberty.

6 ways to grow taller

In addition to genetics being the leading factor, the following 6 factors have a great influence on children's height development:

Pregnancy and childbirth: During pregnancy, the mother's diet affects the weight and growth length of the fetus. Therefore, before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and during breastfeeding, the mother must eat enough important nutrients such as protein, iodine, iron, folic acid, unsaturated fatty acids (DHA, ARA)... for the baby to develop healthily.

Nutrition: Besides genetics, nutrition has a greater impact on height than genetics. Children's physical growth and stature are directly affected by nutrition.

Nutrition contributes up to 32% to the height development of children. Nutrition needs to have enough energy suitable for each age. If too little, the child will be malnourished, but too much will cause obesity.

Children's meals need to ensure adequate intake of 4 food groups: protein (accounting for 10-15% of total energy), starch (accounting for 60-65% of total energy), fat (accounting for 10% of total energy) and vitamins and minerals. Do not eat too much of anything, causing imbalance.

Nutrition has a big impact on children's height development. Photo: SKDS.

Physical exercise: Cartilage is the factor that forms the height of the child. For the bones to develop healthily, exercise and sports are the most necessary things. A sedentary lifestyle will inhibit the development of muscles and bones, thereby reducing the height that could have been achieved.

Some sports that are good for height development are chin-ups, swimming, basketball, stretching exercises such as cat-style stretching, cobra-style stretching, leg stretching exercises...

Living environment: Environmental and social factors have a great influence on children's physical development, especially height development.

Children are susceptible to stunting malnutrition when living in conditions of poor socio-economic development, polluted environment, insufficient clean water, unsafe food and poor quality of care.

Early puberty: Early puberty often secretes hormones that stimulate bone growth, causing children to grow very quickly. However, the ends of the bones then quickly close, preventing children from continuing to grow taller. Children with early puberty are often shorter than their peers and do not reach the height that their genes dictate. Therefore, early puberty is one of the causes of stunted height growth in adolescents.

Get enough sleep: For children, sleep plays an extremely important role and affects height development. Newborns usually sleep 22 hours, 2-6 months need 15-18 hours, 6-18 months need 13-15 hours, 18 months to 3 years old should sleep 12-13 hours and children from 3 to 7 years old should sleep 11-12 hours per day.

Children should go to bed before 10pm. Deep sleep from 10pm to 3am is when the body secretes the most growth hormone.

According to Zing