Science Insight

For decades, I’ve heard the same worried questions from teens, parents, and even young athletes: “Does smoking stop you from growing taller?” The short answer is straightforward — height is mostly determined by genetics, nutrition, and hormone health. Smoking doesn’t “shrink” your bones, but it can influence the biological processes that decide how much growth you get before your body calls it quits. During adolescence, your bones are lengthened at the epiphyseal plates — those soft, active ends of long bones that eventually harden. Once they fuse, usually by your late teens or early twenties, your growth window closes for good.

Most people are told they stop growing the moment they leave their teenage years, as if it’s some biological curtain drop. In truth, that’s only half the story. Yes, your growth plates (the cartilage at the ends of your long bones) eventually fuse in a process called epiphyseal closure, usually by your early 20s. But height is more than just bone length—it’s also posture alignment, spinal decompression, bone density, and muscular support. These are all areas you can influence at any age.

When your baby is born, one of the first things you’ll hear—right after their first cry—is their length. The average newborn height is around 50 centimeters (or 19.7 inches), and while that may sound like just another stat, it actually tells doctors quite a bit. It’s part of the baseline for early growth evaluation and plays into how your pediatrician monitors your child’s development during those first critical months.

Most girls reach their final height between ages 14 and 16, but that number doesn’t tell the full story. What really determines when a girl stops growing is a mix of her genetics, hormone levels—particularly estrogen—and the maturity of her bones, also known as skeletal maturity. The key players here are growth plates—those thin layers of cartilage at the end of long bones. Once estrogen levels spike during puberty, those plates begin to close. When they close completely, height growth stops—sometimes without you even realizing it.

It's absolutely possible to grow taller than your parents — and it happens more often than you'd think. If you’ve ever caught yourself wondering, “Will I outgrow my mom and dad?”, you’re not alone. It’s a question nearly every teenager ponders during those awkward, fast-changing years of adolescence. While genetics clearly lay the groundwork for your height, they don’t write the full story. In fact, there’s plenty of wiggle room between inherited traits and what actually shows up on the growth chart.

You’ve probably seen it before—two kids the same age, but one is significantly shorter. Maybe it’s your child, or maybe it was you growing up. Either way, when a child’s height doesn’t keep pace with their age group, it’s more than just “being short.” Stunted growth is a clinical term, and it signals that something in the body’s normal development process has been disrupted.

In the last few decades, China's average height has grown—literally. Walk through any city today, and you’ll notice: people are simply taller than they were a generation ago. Official data backs that up. According to the National Health Commission of China, the average 18-year-old male now stands at 175.7 cm, and the average female at 163.5 cm. That might not seem groundbreaking—until you realize that in the 1980s, those figures were several centimeters lower. The numbers don’t just reflect biology. They echo shifts in nutrition, income, education, and healthcare access—the stuff that shapes human potential.

If you’ve ever second-guessed your measurements while making pants or dresses—especially when your hemline keeps landing in the exact same spot every time—you’re not alone. One of the easiest details to overlook when drafting or altering a pattern is your own height. But here's the thing: if you’re still working off an old assumption that you're growing, your pattern fit might be suffering without you even realizing it.

Kyphosis is more than just a medical term — it's something you’ve probably seen without even realizing it. That familiar rounded upper back? That’s kyphosis. Specifically, it’s a forward curvature of the thoracic spine, and while a slight curve is normal, anything beyond 45 degrees is considered hyperkyphosis. It’s one of those subtle posture issues that can quietly chip away at your natural height, especially during the critical growth years.