Canadian researchers have devised a low-tech method they say can predict a child’s ultimate height within a couple inches.
Parents who are curious about their children’s future stature can perform the calculation themselves, with the help of little more than a tape measure.
Also, according to the researchers, their prediction method could prove practically useful in sports. A problem in youth sports is that there is a bias toward kids who have already begun their adolescent growth spurt, study co-author Dr. Adam D. Baxter-Jones told Reuters Health.
But if, for example, a short adolescent boy is merely a late bloomer and destined to top 6 feet, then volleyball may indeed be his game.
“We wanted to give coaches, teachers and other professionals working in this area a non-invasive technique to distinguish the late maturers from the early maturers,” explained Baxter-Jones, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada.
He and his colleagues arrived at their height-prediction formula by studying 224 boys and 120 girls between the ages of 8 and 16. They found that a calculation based on a child’s age, height, weight and sitting height -- which gauges leg length in relation to total height -- could predict boys’ adults height within 2 inches and girls’ height within 2 to 3 inches.
Baxter-Jones and his colleagues report their findings in the October issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, where they point out that there have long been other methods for predicting a child’s future height, but they have drawbacks.
Measuring “bone age,” for instance, is expensive and exposes a child to radiation. There are less intrusive methods, too -- such as using the average of both parents’ heights --but Baxter-Jones said his team’s formula seems to be more accurate than other non-invasive measures.
Specifically, the tool’s use of sitting height gives an estimate of a child’s current biological maturity -- that is, how far he or she is from a growth spurt. On average, girls have a growth spurt at about age 12, while boys’ heights tend to take off at age 14; there are, however, early and late “bloomers,” and the new prediction tool takes this into account.
However, Baxter-Jones pointed to some limitations of the method as well. While the method is low-tech enough for parents to perform themselves, they do need to be precise in taking the measurements that are to be plugged into the formula.
In addition, the tool is intended only for healthy children between the ages of 8 and 16, and not those with any medical condition affecting growth. And because all of the children in the study were white, it’s not clear yet whether the formula is accurate for other racial groups.
