Health During the Years of Growth

What is the right height for a thirteen-year-old girl? What is the proper height for a fourteen-year-old boy? How much should an eighth-grade boy weigh? These questions are impossible to answer. The truth of the matter is that there are a thousand correct heights and weights for adolescents who are thirteen or fourteen years old.

What accounts for the fact that people your age may vary so much in height and weight? Why is it that one eighth grader can weigh twice as much as another? The answers, of course, lie in the teen-ager’s heredity and physiology. During adolescence the teenager’s body undergoes great changes in height, weight, appearance, and internal structure. Every teenager grows at his own rate and matures at his own rate.

Every part of your body will undergo some change during the teen years. Whole glands will disappear. Others will change. The size and proportions of your body will change. All this will happen quickly.

Sometimes it is the speed of growth that causes you to worry about your height or weight. In this chapter some of the reasons for these growth problems will be given, as well as some solutions to the problems of growth.

Can You Find Out?

If you can find out your height when you were two years old, you can predict your adult height. You can probably obtain this information from your parents or your family doctor. You can use this figure to predict your adult height if you multiply your height in inches by a number. Girls should multiply by 100/53, and boys should multiply by 100/48.5. The resulting figure will be a good prediction of your height at maturity. Like all predictions, however, it should be viewed with caution. No prediction can account for everything that might influence your adult height.