Question:
Hi there.
I have a question about the Tanner Stage Calculator and about my future adult height.
My Tanner stage is 4.2 or 4.3. I am almost 18 years old. I am considered to be a late bloomer because I started puberty when I was 14 or so. My morning height is 177.2 (5’10) and my night height is 175.5 (5’9), so I just say that my height is 176 cm (5’9) when people ask me. My parents are old, so their heights when they were young were 163 (5’4) for mom and 186 (6’1) for dad. My parents have lost some height due to their old age.
So what will be my final adult height? My best guess is that I will be at least 179-184 cm (5’11 to 6’0) range because I have tried the Adult Height Calculators sometimes and it guesses my final height to be 180 (5’11).
And I have some half-siblings from my father’s side and their mom was 167 (5’5). My half-brothers range from 183 (6’0) to 190 cm (6’3). My half-sisters are between 5’9 and 5’10.
I have not had an X-ray because I don’t think that’s necessary. I am confident about how tall I will end by the end of my growth.
But I am definitely a late bloomer because the average age to reach Tanner Stage 5 is 17 and for Tanner Stage 4 is 14 or so. I started Tanner Stage 4 when I was 17 years so I believe that I will stop growing at age 21 or 22. Don’t get me wrong, males stop growing at 25 but that’s other things that grow, not height.
I have not grown much at all. I have never had a growth spurt, I have always grown pretty steadily. A growth chart of my early heights:
- 13 years – 5’1
- 14 years – 5’2
- 15 years – 5’5
- 16 years – 5’7
- 17 years – 5’8
- 18 years – 5’9
I have tried the Tanner Stage Calculator since I was 17 so I have no clue what my stages used to be. But I started puberty and noticed the first signs at 14. I already had body hair on my arms and legs since I was 6-7 years old, but it was almost not visible. I assume it was because I have a hairy father. I also had hair near my penis, but it was nearly invisible before I was 14 — perhaps more like 11 or 12 but other things were not happening that should happen in the early parts of puberty.
What’s your point of view of my long message? What are your expectations about my height and the information that I gave? Right now I am almost 18 and at the beginning of stage 4.
Have a great day!
Answer:
Looking just at your heights during your teenage years, it looks like you started Stage 3 around the age of 14. Stage 3 is defined as growing more than 2 inches in a year’s span and from 14 to 15 you grew 3 inches. Yes, your growth spurt was not dramatic, but you did have one.
Most people don’t realize they are changing until something dramatic happens. Usually, it is noticing pubic hair or spontaneous erections. By the way, we are only talking about terminal hairs when talking about hair growth — the ones that have color, are thicker, and have length. Everyone has vellus hairs — the light short hairs — over all their skin.
Assuming that you started stage 3 at age 14, then at age 12 would be when you first hit puberty. This would mean that you are not a late-bloomer. You are actually fairly close to the average. This would also mean that I would expect you to be within a year of reaching stage 5. Since you are getting 4.2 or 4.3 from the calculator, I can’t say where the problem lies since I can’t see you directly and I don’t know how you answered the questions in the Tanner Stage Calculator.
Boys born to your parents would grow to an adult height from 174 (5’8) to 200 cm (6’6). Where you would fall in that range would depend on the exact genes you inherited from your parents. Your current height of 176 cm (5’9) puts you within that range and it is the average height for men across the world.