I am concerned that I’ve stopped growing early

Last updated on May 16, 2021

Question:

Hi,

To start off, I am 5’7. I’m almost 16. My parents’ heights are 5’8 and 5’2.

At the age of 13, I feel like many things happened all at once. I had hair come across my body, some facial hair started to kick in, erections happened, and my voice was deeper but not quite deep. But I just grew an inch since then. Since I was 14, my body froze or something. After that burst of development, my facial hair is the same amount, my height is the same, my body hair is the same, and my muscles are the same. I feel like I was supposed to grow. I am 100% certain that I am not an early bloomer. When I was 12 years old, I was 5’1, then grew to about 5’5 at 13 and at 14 I was 5’6-7. Now that I am almost 16, I am at the same height. Evidence that I wasn’t an early bloomer was that my voice, hair, most of the things started at around 13.5, except for my chin as it isn’t long and looks like a child’s chin. The Tanner stage says I’m at 3.9/4, which I feel is wrong because the things boys do at stage 3, is what I do more and feel related to more than stage 4, but there is still some stuff at stage 4 that I relate to, like a small amount of torso hair growing, my legs have noticeable hair. and my arms got hair but not a lot. I feel like that’s mostly genetic because my family has kind of hairy males.

My second concern:

I have read one of the questions you answered about where the half-height of the body is located. You said that it typically is above or around the navel in your childhood and at the penis area when you are in puberty and after it. But that’s not the case for me. I measured it and for some reason, it is slightly above my belly button. I don’t know how but I measured again and it was right, what I did was divide 170 by 2, because 170 cm is my height, which is 5’7. I then measured that number to where it ended up on my body.

Waiting for your reply.

Answer:

From your description, I would guess that you had reached stage 3 when you were 12 years old. Stage 3 is when you grow the fastest and you grew four inches when you were 12. Near the end of your 13th year you entered into stage 4 and grew another inch when you were 14, showing that your growth was slowing down. That would mean that you are probably near stage 5 or past it at your current age. The deepened voice and facial hair would also indicate that you are past the mid-point of stage 4.

You are also well past the minimum height for boys of your parent’s genetics, which would be 5’5.

The half-height measurement is based on the “ideal” human male that artists used. It sounds like you are short-legged (or long torso), like Michael Phelps, the Olympic swimmer.

Please realize that this is only based on what you told me. I can’t see you, so I don’t know if you missed telling me something or not. You can ask your doctor whether he thinks you will grow more or not, since he can see you fully and do tests if necessary.

Question:

True, but, from what people see and what my body measurements are, my legs are longer (maybe I measured my mid-point wrong) and I think my arms too because I have a wingspan of 5’9, but I don’t know if that makes any difference for my future height. And do feet size or hand size indicate something? As I wear size 9.5 but I don’t know if that’s genetics or what.

In my opinion and from the tests of the website, I am at stage 4.0, as for the starting of my facial hair growth, just a small mustache, and small chin hair, and some small hairs on my cheeks, nothing much and they reach a limit if I keep them unshaven for too long, meaning I can’t grow a beard yet.

Answer:

Most boys cannot grow a full beard until after they have reached stage 5 (often several years later).

Shoe size doesn’t tell you anything.

If your legs are longer than your torso, then your half-height would be below your navel and most likely below the base of your penis.