Solving Growth Problems

Eating habits. Do you often skip breakfast because there is not time or because you are not hungry? Unfortunately, many teen-agers do. Also, many teen-agers eat one or two snacks a day during their years of rapid growth. These eating habits are common and may contribute to growth or weight problems in adolescents.

Underweight. When boys and girls suddenly grow tall, they sometimes think they have become underweight. Actually, their bodies have not had time to fill out because of their sudden spurt upward. Many teen-agers’ fear of being underweight is due to this unevenness in growth.

In rare cases, teen-agers are underweight. Nutrition is one cause; glandular disturbances, worry, lack of rest, or infection are other causes. When being underweight is caused by one of these problems, a doctor should be consulted. It is not a good idea to try to adjust your diet to gain weight without a doctor’s advice. This kind of self-treatment can cause nutritional problems and should be avoided.

Overweight. Problems of being overweight are much more common than problems of being underweight. One cause may be the many snacks teen-agers eat. Another cause of being overweight may be that a person may eat too much of a certain type of food. In any event there are several things you can do if excess weight is one of your growth problems.

The first step you should take in coping with a weight problem is to consult your doctor. He may find that your weight gain is a normal part of your own growth pattern. Many people become chubby during certain periods of adolescence, only to lose the unwanted weight at a later time. If the doctor finds that you do have a weight problem, he can recommend a sensible diet to overcome it.

Dieting is a common practice. Unfortunately, many teenagers, particularly girls, follow diets that are poor   in   essential  body  nutrients. When the body does not have these vital foods, or has too much of the wrong kinds of food, it is hindered in its development. Such an unwise diet can cause poor bone formation, tooth decay, and increased susceptibility to illness.

Dieting is not the only solution to problems of being overweight. You can use exercise to hold your weight within reasonable limits. Exercise alone is not a good way to take off weight. You would, for instance, have to walk thirty-five miles to take off one pound. However, a good program of exercise will take off some weight, and will use up energy that would otherwise be converted to fat.

Weight charts. You may see weight charts that state that a person your age and height should weigh a certain number of pounds. These charts may appear to be accurate, but they are actually misleading. Because everyone grows at his own rate and has many purely individual characteristics, there is a good chance that he will not be similar to the "average" in height or weight. From this information, you can see that you cannot conclude you are overweight or underweight simply because you differ from a figure given on a chart. If such a
chart makes you seem seriously overweight or underweight, see your doctor. He will be able to judge your weight in relation to your growth rate, bone structure, general health, and height.

Sleep needs. You have learned that your body is growing "in all directions at once" during your teen years. You are also aware of the great demands of your increasing schedule of activities: sports, homework, hobbies, and projects. Sometimes you may be tempted to make time for all these activities by cutting down on sleeping time.

This method only works for a short time, however. After a few days your lack of sleep will cut down on the energy you have for your activities. Your lack of sleep would also hurt your body’s efforts to grow during this period of great body change. From this information you should see that the recommended eight to ten hours sleep is, in fact, a necessity for growing adolescents.

Think for Yourself

Why is being overweight more common than being underweight in America today

Heredity and the Growth Spurt

The internal clock. As you have learned, every cell in your body contains chromosomes, which determine your physical and mental capacities. From your knowledge of heredity, you know that these characteristics were passed on to you by your parents and that neither you nor they can change them. These chromosomes act as a sort of internal clock that sets the time when you will have an adult physique, or body build.

This internal clock controls the beginning of your growth spurt, the rate of your growth, and the time when it will end. It even times the growth of the parts of your body.

You can blame it if your feet get too large or your nose too long. In fact, this clock also helps to determine your body build, athletic capabilities, and a great deal of your personality.

The chromosomes in your internal clock determine all these characteristics only if other factors do not interfere. Your chromosomes might influence your body to grow tall. If you had very poor nutrition, however, you would not grow as tall as you could have. Nutrition, exercise, diseases, and other factors can change the plans of your internal clock.

Predicting size and build. If you look carefully at your parents, you can probably detect many similarities between them and you. However, it is not very often that a person has all or most of his parents’ traits. It is most likely that you will inherit some traits from one parent and some traits from the other.

Because your size is largely determined by your inheritance, you may be able to get a rough idea of your size at maturity by looking at your parents. However, this method is not always accurate. A short mother not a tall father can have tall, medium, and short children. Because of the peculiar way chromosomes work parents of medium height may have tall children, short children, and any size between. Look at the chart to see how parents’ heights affect their children.

Your bone structure, weight, and physical appearance are determined in the same way as your height. However, each of these characteristics is more complex than height. Consequently, it is not likely that you will look exactly like your parents in any of these ways. However, you may have many similar characteristics. Prediction of these characteristics is extremely difficult even in the best of circumstances.

Severe growth problems. If you think that you have serious growth problems, it would be wise to see your doctor. You will remember that the parathyroids, pituitary, and other endocrines control your skeletal growth and physical development. Occasionally, these glands may secrete too much or too little of the hormones that control growth. Doctors can treat this glandular problem by reducing the activity of the gland or by giving regular doses of the necessary hormones. You must realize, however, that there are only a very few cases of glandular difficulty. Most teenagers’ growth problems are not based on glandular problems and can be solved by several relatively simple methods.

Try This

Take two or three of your outstanding physical characteristics and trace them back to your grandparents. Are all your outstanding traits inherited from one side of your family?

The Years of Growth

Patterns of growth. Are most of the members of your class taller or shorter than you are? Do you sometimes feel "different" because other people seem to be growing at a rate faster or slower than yours? You might think of your class as a train-load of travelers who are leaving San Francisco on the Chief. Some of the travelers might get off in the mountains, vacation a few days, and continue by air to New York. Others on the train might travel to Chicago and stop there. Still others might leave the train at various cities along the route. Each of you would have traveled different distances at different rates. However, all of you would have reached your destinations successfully. Your growth is a similar trip. You will grow at different rates and to different heights.

If you look at the pictures of the girls on the next page you will see an example of the ways two girls grew. Notice that both girls are of similar size at age eighteen. Each girl grew at her own rate. The age at which each girl grew fastest did not affect her final height.

Rate of growth. Perhaps your mother and father remember their height and weight at your age. They might be able to tell you when they began their period of fastest growth. Most people have one period of particularly fast growth during their adolescence. The timing of this period of fast growth is determined by your heredity.

There are some who have a growth spurt during their late teens. Other might grow more quickly during early teens. The timing of the spurt has no relationship to the person’s eventual height.

The one valid generalization concerning growth spurts is that girls tend to grow quickest during their early teens and boys tend to grow fastest later. This means that at age thirteen or fourteen some girls may have grown taller than many boys the same age. In a year or so this situation will have been reversed as the boys catch up with, and grow taller than the girls.

The average teen-ager. You have learned that boys and girls experience their growth spurts at different times. You also know that each boy and each girl grows at a rate that is controlled by his heredity.

People sometimes lose sight of these facts when they begin using the term average. The average height of all twelve-year-old boys is different from the average height of all twelve-year-old girls. However, this does not mean that most of the girls or most of the boys will be of average height. It does mean that a great number of boys and girls are taller or shorter than the average.

You should realize that the term average height has little to do with any one teen-ager. When teen-agers reach maturity, the term has much more meaning.

The awkward age? You have probably seen examples of the gawky, gangling teen-ager on television. According to the comedy writers, boys and girls in their mid-teens are seven feet tall, are very skinny, fall over their own feet, and possess voices that sound like rusty hinges. Of course, these characters are not real. However, sometimes you may feel that these descriptions are uncomfortably accurate.

Because all parts of your body are changing during the years of adolescence, some parts sometimes get "out of step" with others. A boy’s feet may grow two or three sizes in a year. A girl may grow six inches in a year and not put on any weight. A boy may suddenly find himself stumbling over small objects or bumping into furniture. These symptoms are not unusual for teen-agers and are temporary.

You can be confident that the unevenness of growth will not last long. By the time you are sixteen or eighteen (depending on the time you started your growth spurt), all the parts of your body will be in harmony again.

Try This

Your class can make one graph of the heights of the boys in your class. Another can be made of the heights of the girls. Compare the boys’ and girls’ average heights. What conclusion can you draw from this comparison?