Can you increase your child's height? What works and what is sold

What actually decides height

Genetics accounts for the large majority of adult height. A rough estimate: average the parents' heights, then add about 6.5 cm for a boy or subtract about 6.5 cm for a girl. Our height predictor does the arithmetic, with the caveat that it is an estimate rather than a promise.

The rest is environment — nutrition, sleep, physical activity, and freedom from repeated illness. In India this matters more than in richer countries, because childhood undernutrition and repeated infections have historically cost a real number of centimetres at population level.

Growth happens in bursts, mostly during sleep, and the two biggest windows are the first two years and puberty. Missing nutrition in those windows costs more than at any other time.

What genuinely helps

Protein at every meal — dal, curd, paneer, eggs, meat or fish, soya, nuts ground into food. Chronic protein shortfall is the commonest dietary reason Indian children fall short of their potential.

Calcium and vitamin D: dairy, ragi, til, greens, plus the vitamin D supplement most Indian paediatricians prescribe, since deficiency is near-universal here.

Iron and zinc: anaemia is extremely common in Indian children, and it slows growth as well as learning. Get haemoglobin checked if a child is pale, tired or eating poorly.

Sleep, because growth hormone is released mainly during deep sleep: 10-13 hours for preschoolers, 9-11 for primary-age children, 8-10 for teenagers. Chronic late bedtimes are a genuine growth issue as well as a school one.

Physical activity, especially running, jumping and skipping, and treating chronic illness — repeated infections, untreated asthma, coeliac disease and worms all cost growth. Deworming twice a year is free through the school and Anganwadi programme.

What does not

Height-increase powders, syrups, ayurvedic 'growth' formulations and supplements sold online do not add centimetres. Several have been found to contain steroids, which suppress growth — the opposite of what was bought.

Stretching exercises, hanging from bars and specific yoga poses do not lengthen bones. They are good exercise; they are not a height treatment.

Growth hormone injections are a genuine medical treatment for specific diagnosed conditions — growth hormone deficiency, Turner syndrome, certain others — prescribed by a paediatric endocrinologist after testing. They are not a treatment for being short with normal hormones, they are extremely expensive, and clinics offering them casually should be avoided.

Once the growth plates close, at the end of puberty, height is final. Nothing available reopens them.

When to see a doctor

See a paediatrician if: your child is below the 3rd percentile for height, has crossed downward through two major percentile lines, is growing less than about 4-5 cm a year in mid-childhood, is markedly shorter than the height predicted from the parents, has not started puberty by 13 (girls) or 14 (boys), or looks much younger than their age.

Also worth checking: chronic diarrhoea or poor weight gain alongside short height, which can indicate coeliac disease or another absorption problem; and thyroid function, which is a common and very treatable cause of slowed growth.

This article is general information, not medical advice, and is no substitute for personal medical advice. For any decision about your or your child's health, please consult your doctor.

Frequently asked questions

Q: My child is the shortest in the class. — Compare with their own curve and with the family's heights rather than with the class. A child growing steadily along a low percentile, with normal puberty timing, is usually just going to be short — which is not a medical problem.

Q: Does milk make children taller? — Adequate calcium, protein and calories support growth, and milk is a convenient source. Excess milk, though, displaces iron-rich food and causes anaemia, which slows growth. Two cups a day after the first birthday is the balance.

Q: When do children stop growing? — Girls typically finish within about two years of their first period; boys continue later, often into the late teens.

Q: Are these online height calculators accurate? — They give a range based on parental height, and the actual result commonly lands several centimetres either side. Useful as an expectation, useless as a prediction for an individual child.