The growth process is seen in every individual human ever existed but the problem is being, not everyone grow at the same rate and definitely not growing to the same height. The growth process is unpredictable, but medical expert have perfected the growth estimation scale to more or less give a reasonable prediction relative to a person’s race, age and sex.
Genetic, diet and activity of a person interacts in a very individual and complex manner in determining the rate of growth, this is yet another mystery to be understood. And even if two persons are to grow to an exact same height, one may be slower than the other.
By using the widely accepted standard growth scale, parents can detect retardation of their children’s growth process, and have reasons to suspect the presence of underlying diseases when they don’t grow to certain height and weight in accordance to their age and bring them to the attention of family physician or pediatricians.
If you are up for a science quiz challenge, here is one for you. When a baby is born, he or she has a total of three hundred bones in the body, and she the baby grows, the number of bones gradually decreases, and in mature adults, there are only two hundred and six bones left. Where did rest of the ninety four bones go?
Well actually that is a typical test question taken from anatomy test paper of a first year medical student, so don’t punish yourself if you cannot find the answer. In new born babies, bones are actually soft cartilage tissues, and as a baby grow, the young bone structures are becoming more and more compact and hardened, some bones fused together to form larger pieces of bones. Bones grow in width and length through a process called ossification, and ossifications are especially intense at structures called growth plates which are located at the end of each long bone.
When a person reaches adulthood, growth process slows down remarkably, growth plates disappear and bones have no more capability to grow in length, leaving a person at his or her final height. If however, for certain reasons growth plates are damaged or inadequately stimulated to produce length, then a person will appear stunted, and if growth plates all over the body are not maturing at the supposed rate, then there will be atypical in bone lengths which produce abnormal human figures.
Parents may keep an eye on their children’s growth patterns, for instance using the body height chart to estimate the potential height and compare it to the actual height. There are more simple rough formulae of estimation, like for example, “the height of a girl should be double by three years old”.
In our recommended book, Grow taller 4 idiots, you can find more details about the growth chart, how to use it, a rough guideline to detect your child’s height abnormality and get to know in greater details the various factors that determines a person’s growth process.
A standard growth chart can be found at:
Central of Disease control website LINK {http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/}
About.com article on pediatric growth LINK {http://pediatrics.about.com/od/growthcharts2/Childrens_Growth_Charts.htm}
