TEENS CAN GROW AT FIVE DIFFERENT SPEEDS AND ALL ARE NORMAL

That a 14 year old boy is the shortest in the class is not worrisome. It may be that he has just made his debut at puberty and is a very late maturator. It will grow later.

It is one of the conclusions drawn from the latest study of the Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona on growth in adolescence. The researchers have validated that There are five normal adolescent growth patterns and not just one, as previously believed, and which are determined by the time of puberty onset.

After following the growth of 1,453 children from four years to adulthood, in a pioneering study in the world, the authors have created a classification that they claim will avoid "many diagnostic errors", since it has been found that at age 18 everyone has a similar stature.

The five rhythms of adolescent growth

The main conclusion of the study is that there are five patterns of pubertal or adolescent growth, and not just one pattern, as previously believed.

These five patterns or speeds are determined by the time of onset of puberty. The new classification proposes:

A girl who debuted at puberty with eight years and a boy with 10 years, are very early maturators.
A girl who debuted at nine and a boy at 11, are early maturators.
If the girl matures at 10 and the boy at 12, they are intermediate.
At 11 the girl and 13 the boy, would be late maturators.
At 12 years old the girl and at 14 the boy, they would release a very late maturity.

In Babies and more, they develop a new method to assess the growth and nutritional status of children, more accurate than growth charts

The onset of puberty is the starting gun for adolescent growth:

Early maturators gain many more centimeters in height than the rest after eight years in girls and 10 years in boys. The new classification shows that in these cases, girls are 129 cm tall at eight years old, while very late girls are 126 cm tall.
At age 12, very early ripeners measure 157 cm while very late ones measure 145 cm. Both growth patterns are normal. The difference is that very early maturators begin to grow earlier.

Thus, a boy of 14 may be the lowest in the class, and this does not have to be a worrying fact, because if at this age he has just made his debut at puberty, he is a very late maturator.

Every boy grows at his own pace

Antonio Carrascosa, labor leader and head of Pediatrics at Vall d'Hebron hospital between 1988 and 2015, explained that "Each boy grows at his own pace, and the five patterns are normal."

He adds that the fact that pediatricians use a single growth pattern (the intermediate one) as a normal comparator, generates "many diagnostic errors, unnecessary treatments and suffering", as pharmacological treatments to slow the progression of puberty in children who mature very early and are not necessary.

With this classification, the pediatrician will know what type of pattern the adolescent follows and if their growth is normal or not depending on their growth rate from the onset of puberty, that is, the appearance of sexual characters (such as growth of breasts in girls, increase in testicular measure in boys), which causes growth to accelerate.

In Babies and more Adolescents: these are the biggest risks to your health, according to the WHO

Dr. Antonio Carrascosa explains that this was already known, but "So far, no study has been conducted in the world with so many participants on the relationship between the onset of puberty and the different growth patterns. Now, when a pediatrician assesses the growth of a boy, he can do so much more. careful ”.

In fact, the same authors of this study had already published a similar one eight years ago, although according to the doctor "We hadn't included so many boys and girls."

"Now, our classification, as this last study has more than 100 participants per growth pattern and more than 25,000 anthropometric data, is fully validated."

In addition, they have detected that, On average, the five groups reach the age of 18 with the same height (around 167.7 centimeters in girls and 178 centimeters in boys) with what They break the myth that those who begin to mature later grow less.

The study has followed 743 girls and 710 boys between 1995 and 2017, from four years of age until they reach adulthood.

Researchers have collected data on height, growth speed, weight and body mass index of the participants, all without obesity or malnutrition.

Photos | iStock