Last updated on August 27, 2020
Question:
I have used the Tanner Calculator for Boys a couple of times, but I am looking for your personal expert opinion. I am 15 years old and 6’1 165 pounds. My dad is short only 5’8 and my mom is 5’6. My dad is the only short one in my family. Every other male is 6 feet or above. I believe I started puberty at 13 or 14 by getting a little bit of pubic hair on my genitals. It has moved very slowly and now I have some hair under my underarms but not a lot and no facial hair. When people look at me they say my legs look way too long for my body and my feet and hands look very big (I am a size 13 shoe). I grew about 5 inches last year and an inch so far this year. Also, I recently had an x-ray on my leg and they said my growth plates are still open; however, I feel as if I am not growing as rapidly as I was last year. I am very curious at what stage of puberty you think I am and especially how much taller you think I will get.
Thank you very much.
Answer:
Going by your description you are in the middle to end of stage 3. Stage 3 is marked by rapid growth. The technical definition of stage 4 is when that growth begins to slow down. I usually don’t go by a person’s feelings because they are too subjective. Growth of one inch in two months is still rapid, but I would not be surprised to hear that it might take four months to gain the next inch.
At thirteen or fourteen, you were in stage 2 because that is when pubic hair begins to show. Stage 2 starts, on average, at the age of eleven and most of the stages last roughly about two years, I would say you are running about a year behind the average, which is definitely normal.
How much you will grow is very hard to predict while you are in stage 3. It is like trying to predict how far a car will go while it is still moving. There are too many variables: how much gas is still in the tank, how fast are you going? Is it uphill or down? What I can tell you is that once a boy hits stage 4 (which you might have — I don’t have enough information to make a precise guess), he has about two to three inches of growth left.