Question:
Hi! I am just curious to as how tall I will be. Here is some info:
Age: 14 years (almost) 10 months
Height: 67 inches
Weight: 140 pounds
Growth Patterns:
8: 4’3.5
9: 4’6.5
10: 4’7
11: 4’9
12: 4’11
13: 5’1
14: 5’5 (1 month later when I got my checkup I was 5’5.25)
14 yrs 10 months: 5’7
(I was actually pretty tall before I reached puberty)
Genetics:
Dad: 5’5
Mom: 5’2 or 5’3.
My paternal grandparents are short. Like dad being 5’5 and mom being 5’0.
My maternal family is actually relatively tall. Grandfather is 5’9 and his oldest brother is 5’10 maybe 5’11 an inch taller than my granddad. However, I am the oldest grandchild of my grandfather. For his oldest brother their grandchildren, which are boys, ended up pretty tall. Like I am talking 6’1, 6’0, and 6’2.
Puberty Characteristics/Tanner Stage: I took a Tanner stage test and it said I am at 3.7. It doesn’t sound too wrong. I took one when I just turned 14 and I was at 3.5. I have some armpit hair, pubic hair is curly but doesn’t really go past the crouch area into the thighs. I don’t have a belly strip of hair. I have some belly hair but I mean it is so unnoticeable as well as my chest hair. I have to really look at it so I guess I don’t really have them yet. I do have a mustache but it isn’t a mustache. Kind of hard to explain let’s say not a mustache but kind of like peach fuzz but a bit more but maybe because I am Indian. I have some leg hair not too noticeable. Not much hair on my thighs. To be honest, people wouldn’t be able to notice my leg hair at parties with other boys my age but if they looked at it for a bit then they would see it.
Yeah, I feel like my description fits at 3.7. Also, one more thing about my growth is that it isn’t steady. It happens suddenly and then I stop growing for like forever. An example is when I turned 13, I was 5’1. But two months later I was 5’3.5 inches. Then, I only grew an inch leading up to the summer and then grew another inch during that summer. And when I just turned 14, I feel I grew 1/4 of an inch in a matter of days. Wouldn’t this lead to a longer time in stage 3 because of how long it takes me to grow the inches I am supposed to grow because of the long pauses?
Anyway, my final question is: Just how tall I will be? Thanks!
Answer:
The KGH method predicts you will be 6’9″ (+ or – 2 inches). See Predicting Your Adult Height.
Yes, Tanner Stage 3.7 does sound like an accurate prediction from the calculator. As I have frequently mentioned, growth is often not steady. It comes in spurts as the body routes the energy for growth to different parts of the body to get everything to grow in a uniform way. Not all of your growth is in your bones. This is why we talk about the growth over a year or half-year period. This smooths out the starts and stops. The pauses don’t mean you will spend more time in stage 3.
The faint hair that you see is called vellus hair. During puberty, the vellus hair, which is fine and lacking color, grows longer so they are more noticeable. Eventually, they will change to terminal hair (like the hair on your head). Terminal hair is thicker and colored so they are more noticeable.