Have I stopped growing?!


Question: Have I stopped growing?
Long story short:

Dad is 5'11
Grandad from Mum's side is 6'
Brother 21 is 6' 2''
Mum is 5' 6''

My Dad was a late grower, I have started puberty for years, and I am only 5' 8''.

I am 230 Ibs, so yeh I am very fat... can I rely on growing a bit more to make me a bit slimmer or should I just give up and accept going on a diet and exercising is the only option? Which I have no spare time to do unfortunately.

I am 16 nearly 17.

Answers:

It's always very difficult to make predictions about how tall a boy will grow but I do think you do have a good chance of getting taller. You say that your Dad grew late and, as growth patterns often run in families, that does make it more likely you'll still be growing at your age. In any case, many boys will not be fully grown at 16/17. Some boys continue to get slowly taller even after their main growth spurt is over...perhaps until their late teens or even early twenties.

Your brother is 6' 2" and boys with the same biological parents often end up at about the same height so that's another factor in your favour.

A predicted height for you, using a formula which often, though definitely not always, works (your brother outgrew it!) is 5' 11". This figure is arrived at by adding your parents' heights together, then adding 5 (all in inches) and dividing the result by 2. You should make at least this height and would be unlucky not to...especially given your brother's height.

You say that you've been in puberty for years. Boys begin to get taller when puberty begins but they are not growing at their fastest until fairly late in the process. The average boy will be growing his fastest about 2 years after puberty began (when his testes began to get bigger) but a slow developing boy may need 3 1/2 years or even more to reach this point. You may be developing rather slowly.

So, although there are no promises in this area, I do think you have a good chance of growing taller and probably by several inches. As you continue to grow, and provided you don't eat too much and take as much exercise as you can, you should see yourself slimming down. Eat healthily (plenty of fruit and vegetables and protein-rich food such as red meat and eggs), make time to exercise (you really must exercise to be healthy) and get plenty of sleep to make the best of your growth. Hope this helps!




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